Novels Now

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Historical Fiction
2009 Amy Einhorn Books
Finished on 3/25/09
Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding)

Product Description

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.

About the Author

Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. This is her first novel.

I was first drawn to the attractive cover art of this book and it quickly found its way to my stack of ARCs, but it wasn’t until I’d readKay and Tara’s lovely reviews that I decided the time was right to begin reading The Help. I’d been on quite a roll, reading winner after winner, and I trusted both recommendations, feeling confident I was in for another enjoyable book. And what a great book it turned out to be! The characters are fleshed out and memorable, the dialogue is convincingly believable, and I fell in love with Aibileen and Minny, often forgetting that they were characters in a novel.

Stockett is a terrific storyteller and should be very proud of her debut novel. Coming in at just under 450 pages, I almost wish it had been longer; I hated to leave these characters and longed to see what the future held in store for Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter after I turned that final page. I’ve been saying this a lot these past three months, but I simply couldn’t put this book down and often found myself thinking about the characters when I wasn’t reading. They invaded my mind and left a permanent mark on my soul. The setting and time period is one with which I am only vaguely familiar, having spent that portion of my very early childhood in Canada. We did not have maids, nor did we experience the ugly prejudices so rampant in the United States in the early sixties, and thus I cringed as I read passages such as this:

In a rare breeze, my copy of Life magazine flutters. Audrey Hepburn smiles on the cover, no sweat beading on her upper lip. I pick it up and finger the wrinkled pages, flip to the story on the Soviet Space Girl. I already know what’s on the next page. Behind her face is a picture of Carl Roberts, a colored schoolteacher from Pelahatchie, forty miles from here. “In April, Carl Roberts told Washington reporters what it means to be a black man in Mississippi, calling the governor ‘a pathetic man with the morals of a streetwalker.’ Roberts was found cattle-branded and hung from a pecan tree.”

It’s difficult to write about this book without giving too much away. It’s also very difficult — painful, in fact — to write about the terrible attitudes of that time and place. I often found myself full of shame for some of the characters represented in this story, many of whom were ignorant and closed-minded. I will say that I enjoyed all the historical references (Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., the March in Washington, D.C. etc.). I especially appreciated the manner in which Stockett dropped little bits of history into the narrative without it feeling like she was going down a list, checking off each historical tidbit as she incorporated it into her story. For example, Chapter 19 begins with the following:

It was 1963. The Space Age they’re calling it. A man has circled the earth in a rocketship. They’ve invented a pill so married women don’t have to get pregnant. A can of beer opens with a single finger instead of a can opener. Yet my parents’ house is still as hot as it was in 1899, the year Great-grandfather built it.

and

The summer rolls behind us like a hot tar spreader. Ever colored person in Jackson gets in front a whatever tee-vee set they can find, watches Martin Luther King stand in our nation’s capital and tell us he’s got a dream. I’m in the church basement watching. Our own Reverend Johnson went up there to march and I find myself scanning the crowd for his face. I can’t believe so many peoples is there–two-hundred-fifty thousand. And the ringer is, sixty thousand a them iswhite. “Mississippi and the word is two very different places,” the Deacon say and we all nod cause ain’t it the truth.

and

On the news, now Roger Sticker is reporting in front of the Jackson post office with the same stupid grin as the war reporter. “…this modern postal addressing system is called a Z-Z-ZIP code, that’s right, I said Z-Z-ZIP code, that’s five numbers to be written along the bottom of your envelope…”

Funny how you can take things for granted, believing they’ve been around forever and not just 45 years! I’d never not used a ZIP code when addressing a letter and had never stopped to think that there was in fact a time, not all that long ago, in which they didn’t exist.

Suffice it to say, this is a fabulous read. I think it has incredible depth and would be a great book club choice. There’s plenty to discuss and it could easily carry a meeting well into its second hour. And I love what the author says in her final words (Too Little, Too Late):

Like my feelings for Mississippi, my feelings for The Help conflict greatly. Regarding the lines between black and white women, I am afraid I have told too much. I was taught not to talk about such uncomfortable things, that it was tacky, impolite, they might hear us.

I am afraid I have told too little. Not just that life was so much worse for many black women working in the homes in Mississippi, but also that there was so much more love between white families and black domestics than I had the ink or time to portray.

What I am sure about is this: I don’t presume to think that I know what it really felt like to be a black woman in Mississippi, especially in the 1960s. I don’t think it is something any white woman on the other end of a black woman’s paycheck could ever truly understand. But trying to understand is vital to our humanity. In The Help there is one line that I truly prize:

This isn’t simply a great book for fans of historical fiction and book clubs; it’s an important work of literature that should be taught in history classes in high schools across America. Just as we should never forget the Holocaust, we should also never forget the despicable treatment of our fellow citizens.

Kudos, Kathryn! This is a superb story and one I’ll be anxious to recommend to friends and customers alike. I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us next!

Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult
Contemporary Fiction
2009 Atria Books
Finished on 2/16/09
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
ARC - Due out on March 3, 2009

Synopsis (from author’s website):

When Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe’s daughter, Willow, is born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, they are devastated – she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. As the family struggles to make ends meet to cover Willow’s medical expenses, Charlotte thinks she has found an answer. If she files a wrongful birth lawsuit against her ob/gyn for not telling her in advance that her child would be born severely disabled, the monetary payouts might ensure a lifetime of care for Willow. But it means that Charlotte has to get up in a court of law and say in public that she would have terminated the pregnancy if she’d known about the disability in advance – words that her husband can’t abide, that Willow will hear, and that Charlotte cannot reconcile. And the ob/gyn she’s suing isn’t just her physician – it’s her best friend.

Handle With Care explores the knotty tangle of medical ethics and personal morality. When faced with the reality of a fetus who will be disabled, at which point should an OB counsel termination? Should a parent have the right to make that choice? How disabled is TOO disabled? And as a parent, how far would you go to take care of someone you love? Would you alienate the rest of your family? Would you be willing to lie to your friends, to your spouse, to a court? And perhaps most difficult of all – would you admit to yourself that you might not actually be lying?

Jodi Picoult fans are in for a treat. This Tuesday, Handle With Carewill be available for purchase and I know it will be yet another winner for so many readers. I also know it will be an easy book to recommend to friends and customers (and even my father, with whom I spoke the other night; he mentioned that he was reading—and enjoying—Picoult’s previous release, Change of Heart!).

Handle With Care is classic Picoult. The conflict around which the plot revolves is revealed through multiple points of view, with each chapter divided among five main characters, giving voice to their perspectives on an emotionally charged situation. I can’t recall the last time I so enjoyed a book in which one of the main characters was so unlikeable. I even considered tossing the book aside for something more uplifting, but after reading a few more pages I was hooked. I tried to put myself in Charlotte’s position, wondering what I would do in her situation, but never once found myself in agreement with her decision to go forward with the lawsuit. I can’t begin to imagine the life of a parent of a child afflicted with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI). Every day, every hour, every single moment poses a potentially dangerous situation. The constant worry about each new break, the emotional drain and exhaustion, not to mention the incredible financial burden imposed on a family (even one with insurance coverage), must test even the strongest of parents. From beginning to end, I was angry about the choices Charlotte made, unable to understand what still I believe was a selfish act of greed and betrayal. I was much more sympathetic toward Sean and Willow’s older sister, Amelia, oftentimes wanting to reach through the pages and shake some sense into Charlotte.

In classic Picoult style, the novel raises an ethical question—that of wrongful birth:

A wrongful birth lawsuit implies that, if the mother had known during her pregnancy that her child was going to be significantly impaired, she would have chosen to abort the fetus. It places the onus of responsibility for the child’s subsequent disability on the ob-gyn. From a plaintiff’s standpoint, it’s a medical malpractice suit. For the defense, it becomes a morality question: who has the right to decide what kind of life is too limited to be worth living?

Many states had banned wrongful birth suits. New Hampshire wasn’t one of them. There had been several settlements for the parents of children who’d been born with spina bifida or cystic fibrosis or, in one case, a boy who was profoundly retarded and wheelchair-bound due to a genetic abnormality—even though the illness had never been diagnosed before, much less noticed in utero. In New Hampshire, parents were responsible for the care of disabled children their whole lives–not just till age eighteen—which was as good a reason as any to seek damages.

and

If you chose to stop a loved one’s suffering—either before it began or during the process—was that murder, or mercy?

I enjoy reading books in which the characters are represented in alternating chapters. My only quibble this time, however, is that the characters sounded like they were talking to Willow, not in dialogue, but as if the story itself were being retold to her at a later date. I generally don’t care for a character speaking directly to the reader and that’s what this felt like. It became a distraction early on and it wasn’t until the closing chapters, when I was so intent on the final outcome of the courtroom drama, that I was able to ignore this minor annoyance.

Handle With Care is a powerful book, one that will remain with me for a long, long while. I highly recommend it!

For more information about osteogenesis imperfecta, go here.

Visit Picoult’s website to watch a trailer for the novel, read an excerpt, or listen to a podcast about the story behind Handle With Care.

The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth
Medical History/Memoir
2009 Penguin
Finished on 4/28/09
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Product Description

An unforgettable story of the joy of motherhood, the bravery of a community, and the hope of one extraordinary woman

At the age of twenty-two, Jennifer Worth leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in post war London’s East End slums. The colorful characters she meets while delivering babies all over London—from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives to the woman with twenty-four children who can’t speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city’s seedier side—illuminate a fascinating time in history. Beautifully written and utterly moving, The Midwife will touch the hearts of anyone who is, and everyone who has, a mother.

About the author

Jennifer Worth trained as a nurse at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, England. She then moved to London to train as a midwife. She later became a staff nurse at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, and then ward sister at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in Euston. Music had always been her passion and in 1973 Jennifer left nursing in order to study music intensively. She gained the Licentiate of the London College of Music in 1974 and was awarded a fellowship ten years later. Mother of two daughters and grandmother of two; Jennifer lives in Hertfordshire with her husband Philip Worth.

I generally don’t read a lot of nonfiction, but I sure do love memoirs, so I was happy to accept a review copy of The Midwife. I had a little bit of difficulty getting started, stumbling a bit through the introduction, but after that it was smooth sailing. The author has an engaging style and I was quickly transported to the streets of East London.

This is one of those books that must cause a bit of confusion for bookstore buyers and merchandisers. The subtitle indicates that it’s a memoir. However, Barnes & Noble has it shelved in the medical history section. I’m not sure it’s either. I think it falls more into the area of British history, as many of the anecdotes have more to do with life in London after World War II than with the art and science of delivering babies. Regardless of its classification, it’s a lovely story of a young woman living amongst a group of kind-hearted nuns, learning the ropes of midwifery.

On the joy of a delivery:

I am about ready to leave. It has been a long day and night, but a profound sense of fulfilment and satisfaction lighten my step and lift my heart. Muriel and baby are both asleep as I creep out of the room. The good people downstairs offer me more tea, which again I decline as gracefully as I can, saying that breakfast will be waiting for me at Nonnatus House. I give instructions to call us if there seems to be any cause for worry, but say that I will be back again around lunch time, and again in the evening.

I entered the house in the rain and the dark. There had been a fever of excitement and anticipation, and the anxiety of a woman in labour, on the brink of bringing forth new life. I leave a calm, sleeping household, with the new soul in the midst, and step out into the morning sunlight.

I cycled through the dark deserted streets, the silent docks, past the locked gates, the empty ports. Now I cycle through bright early morning, the sun just rising over the river, the gates open or opening, men streaming through the streets, calling to each other; engines beginning to sound, the cranes to move; lorries turning in through the huge gates; the sounds of a ship as it moved. A dockyard is not really a glamorous places, but to a young girl with only three hours sleep on twenty-four hours work, after the quiet thrill of a safe delivery of a healthy baby, it is intoxicating. I don’t even feel tired.

From large families (one delivery is of a woman’s 25th child!) to rickets to interracial births to the horrors of the “workhouse,” Worth entertains and enlightens her readers with anecdotes that help balance the story’s grim poverty and hardships with stories imbued with her keen sense of humor:

A convent is essentially a female establishment. However, of necessity, the male of the species cannot be excluded entirely. Fred was the boiler-man and odd-jobber of Nonnatus House. He was typical of the Cockney of his day and age. Stunted growth, short bowed legs, powerful hairy arms, pugnacious, obstinate, resourceful; all these attributes were combined with endless chat and irrepressible good humour. His most striking characteristic was a spectacular squint. One eye was permanently directed north-east, whilst the other roved in a south-westerly direction. If you added to this the single yellow tooth jutting from his upper jaw, which he generally held over his lower lip and sucked, you would not say he was a beautiful specimen of manhood.

I noticed an occasional repetition to some of the stories, making me wonder if each chapter originated as an essay or column, later to be woven together in the form of a book. This is very minor quibble, as it really didn’t distract from my enjoyment of the narrative.

The Midwife is much more than simply a memoir about a young woman’s experiences in her new role as a midwife. It’s a warm, engaging examination of life in a convent, life in London’s post-war slums, and the friendships that grow between the nuns, midwives and mothers-to-be. If you enjoy any sort of medical narrative or historical memoirs (such as Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes), you’ll fall in love with Worth’s richly evocative story. I certainly did.

Be sure to watch this wonderful video (from BookVideos.tv) of Jennifer Worth discussing her memoir. There are some marvelous black and white photographs included throughout the clip.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Fiction
2009 Simon & Schuster
Finished on 4/9/09
Rating: 4.5/5 (Terrific!)

Product Description

From the author of the international bestseller Incendiary comes a haunting novel about the tenuous friendship that blooms between two disparate strangers — one an illegal Nigerian refugee, the other a recent widow from suburban London.

We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book. It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this: This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope you never have to face. Two years later, they meet again—the story starts there…

I went into this book completely blind. Although I’d seen it at work (who could miss that brilliantly colored cover art?!), I had no idea what it was about and hadn’t heard any buzz (no pun intended) about the details of the story. Then I came across Marcia’s enticing review and decided I had to give it a read. Picked up a copy and devoured it in just a couple of days. Unputdownable! I fell in love with Little Bee and Sarah’s son, Charlie (the latter of whom provides a touch of much needed humor in this distressing, yet powerful novel), and know they will join my ever-growing list of memorable characters.

Cleave is a marvelous storyteller. The main characters are fully realized and the dialogue is well executed and realistic. I loved the author’s device for explaining cultural differences by having Little Bee explain how she would describe a particular situation to “the girls from back home.”

I wait for a gap in the traffic and then I ran across to the center of the road. I climbed over the metal barrier. This time a great many car horns were blown at me. I ran across, and up the green grass bank at the other side of the road. I sat down. I was out of breath. I watched the traffic racing past below me, three lines in one direction and three lines in the other. If I was telling this story to the girls from back home they would be saying, Okay, it was the morning, so the people were traveling to work in the fields. But why do the people who are driving from right to left not exchange their fields with the people who are driving from left to right? That way everyone could work in the fields near to their homes. And then I would just shrug because there are no answers that would not lead to more foolish questions, like What is an office and what crops can you grow in it?

Cleave paints a vivid portrait of the harsh realities in an immigration detention center:

Me, I was a woman under white fluorescent strip lights, in an underground room in an immigration detention center forty miles east of London. There were no seasons there. It was cold, cold, cold, and I did not have anyone to smile at. Those cold years are frozen inside me. The African girl they locked up in the immigration detention center, poor child, she never really escaped. In my soul she is still locked up in there, forever, under the fluorescent lights, curled up on the green linoleum floor with her knees tucked up underneath her chin. And this woman they released from the immigration detention center, this creature that I am, she is a new breed of human. There is nothing natural about me. I was born—no, I was reborn—in captivity. I learned my language from your newspapers, my clothes are your castoffs, and it is your pound that makes my pockets ache with its absence. Imagine a young woman cut from a smiling Save the Children magazine advertisement, who dresses herself in threadbare pink clothes from the recycling bin in your local supermarket car park and speaks English like the leader column of The Times, if you please. I would cross the street to avoid me. Truly, this is the one thing that people from your country and people from my country agree on. They say, That refugee girl is not one of us. That girl does not belong. That girl is a halfling, a child of an unnatural mating, an unfamiliar face in the moon.

On an asylum seeker’s newly found freedom:

Outside, the fresh air smelled of wet grass. It blew in my face. The smell made me panic. For two years I had smelled only bleach, and my nail varnish, and the other detainees’ cigarettes. Nothing natural. Nothing like this. I felt that if I took one step forward, the earth itself would rise up and reject me. There was nothing natural about me now. I stood there in my heavy boots with my breasts strapped down, neither a woman nor a girl, a creature who had forgotten her language and learned yours, whose past had crumbled to dust.

On desperation and loneliness:

Three weeks and five thousand miles on a tea ship—maybe if you scratched me you would still find that my skin smells of it. When they put me in the immigration detention center, they gave me a brown blanket and a white plastic cup of tea. And when I tasted it, all I wanted to do was to get back into the boat and go home again, to my country. Tea is the taste of my land: it is bitter and warm, strong, and sharp with memory. It tastes of longing. It tastes of the distance between where you are and where you come from. And it vanishes—the taste of it vanishes from your tongue when your lips are still hot from the cup. It disappears, like plantations stretching up into the mist. I have heard that your country drinks more tea than any other. How sad that must make you—like children who long for absent mothers. I am sorry.

Little Bee on the sad irony of rock music’s popularity:

“Everyone in my village liked U2,” I said. “Everyone in my country, maybe. Wouldn’t that be funny, if the oil rebels were playing U2 in their jungle camps, and the government soldiers were playing U2 in their trucks. I think everyone was killing everyone else and listening to the same music. Do you know what? The first week I was in the detention center, U2 were number one here too. That is a good trick about this world, Sarah. No one likes each other, but everyone likes U2.”

As I sit here composing this review, I find myself thinking back to The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver’s excellent novel about a missionary family’s experience in an African village in the 1960s. Both Little Bee and The Poisonwood Bible deal with tragic violence and political unrest experienced in Nigeria and the Belgian Congo, respectively, and yet Cleve’s compelling story of loss and survival never feels preachy or pedantic. Little Bee is an excellent choice for a book club discussion, perhaps even combined with Kingsolver’s novel for comparison.

In the news: Kidman vying for film rights

Final word? Can I say I loved this before Oprah smacks her logo on the cover and claims it for her book club?!

 
The Likeness by Tana French
Mystery
2008 Viking
Finished on 2/27/09
Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Product Description

The eagerly anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestselling psychological thriller In the Woods

Six months after the events of In the Woods, Detective Cassie Maddox is still trying to recover. She’s transferred out of the murder squad and started a relationship with Detective Sam O’Neill, but she’s too badly shaken to make a commitment to him or to her career. Then Sam calls her to the scene of his new case: a young woman found stabbed to death in a small town outside Dublin. The dead girl’s ID says her name is Lexie Madison—the identity Cassie used years ago as an undercover detective—and she looks exactly like Cassie.

With no leads, no suspects, and no clue to Lexie’s real identity, Cassie’s old undercover boss, Frank Mackey, spots the opportunity of a lifetime. They can say that the stab wound wasn’t fatal and send Cassie undercover in her place to find out information that the police never would and to tempt the killer out of hiding. At first Cassie thinks the idea is crazy, but she is seduced by the prospect of working on a murder investigation again and by the idea of assuming the victim’s identity as a graduate student with a cozy group of friends.

As she is drawn into Lexie’s world, Cassie realizes that the girl’s secrets run deeper than anyone imagined. Her friends are becoming suspicious, Sam has discovered a generations-old feud involving the old house the students live in, and Frank is starting to suspect that Cassie’s growing emotional involvement could put the whole investigation at risk. Another gripping psychological thriller featuring the headstrong protagonist we’ve come to love, from an author who has proven that she can deliver.

Wow! What an amazing book! I was immediately drawn in at the first chapter and never once grew tired or bored with the plot or characters. This is one of the most engrossing, entertaining, and enjoyable books I’ve read in years. I read for hours on end after work. I read late in the night. I read before work and, yes, even at stoplights. I could not put this book down! Nearly 500 pages and French never once missed a beat. The pacing is remarkably even, the breathtaking suspense incredibly sustained. Perhaps, like Cassie, I began to feel a part of the cozy group of friends, anxiously awaiting a revelation about Lexie’s murder. As the details were finally revealed in the closing chapters, I found myself holding my breath with anticipation, laughing out loud, not because the situation was funny, but because of nervous tension.

Reminiscent of Dennis Lehane’s literary mysteries, The Likeness is much more than a whodunit. The characters are finely drawn, springing to life with believable dialogue. The odd lifestyle of these eccentric roommates isn’t the only aspect of the novel that creates such taut suspense. Whitethorn House (a creepy rambling mansion in which the five English post-grads reside) and the surrounding countryside are very much characters in and of themselves.

Cassie, on her return to undercover:

It felt good, getting stuck into the case like this, like I was just a Murder detective again and she was just another victim; it spread through me strong and sweet and soothing as hot whiskey after a long day in wind and rain. Frank was sprawled casually in his chair, but I could feel him watching me, and I knew I was starting to sound too interested. I shrugged, leaned my head back against the wall and gazed up at the ceiling.

and

Going to sleep on your first night undercover is something you never forget. All day you’ve been pure concentrated control, watching yourself as sharply and ruthlessly as you watch everyone and everything around you; but come night, alone on a strange mattress in a room where the air smells different, you’ve got no choice but to open your hands and let go, fall into sleep and into someone else’s life like a pebble falling through cool green water. Even your first time, you know that in that second something irreversible will start happening, that in the morning you’ll wake up changed. I needed to go into that bare, with nothing from my own life on my body, the way woodcutters’ children in fairy tales have to leave their protections behind to enter the enchanted castle; the way votaries in old religions used to go naked to their initiation rites.

I held my breath, worried that Cassie would eventually make a slight mistake in her character, blowing her cover and putting herself in danger.

This is the part I didn’t tell Sam: bad stuff happens to undercovers. A few of them get killed. Most lose friends, marriages, relationships. A couple turn feral, cross over to the other side so gradually that they never see it happening till it’s too late, and end up with discreet, complicated early-retirement plans. Some, and never the ones you’d think, lose their nerve—no warning, they just wake up one morning and all at once it hits them what they’re doing, and they freeze like tightrope walkers who’ve looked down[...]And some go the other way, the most lethal way of all: when the pressure gets to be too much, it’s not their nerve that breaks, it’s their fear. They lose the capacity to be afraid, even when they should be. These can’t ever go home again. They’re like those First World War airmen, the finest ones, shining in their recklessness and invincible, who got home and found that home had no place for what they were. Some people are are undercovers all the way to the bone; the job has taken them whole.

I was never afraid of getting killed and I was never afraid of losing my nerve. My kind of courage holds up best under fire; it’s different dangers, more refined and insidious ones, that shake me. But the other things: I worried about those. Frank told me once—and I don’t know whether he’s right or not, and I didn’t tell Sam this either—that all the best undercovers have a dark thread woven into them, somewhere.

My husband enjoyed the book, yet felt the mystery fell short due to the unbelievable set of coincidences. And I suppose he’s right, to some extent. After all, what are the odds that one’s doppelganger just happens to be a police detective? I, on the other hand, was able to suspend disbelief and was thoroughly entertained. My copy of the book is littered with Post-It notes, marking passages I thought might reveal a hidden clue as I flipped back and forth, trying to untangle the intricate threads of a skillfully crafted web.

This is one of those compelling mysteries I continually found myself imagining on the big screen. The Talented Mr. Ripley, which also involves a complicated masquerade, lurked in my consciousness as I read. I can even envision Jude Law and Matt Damon playing Daniel and Justin. And, perhaps, Audrey Tautou as Cassie.

While The Likeness is a follow-up to In the Woods, I believe they stand alone and can be read in any order. It’s early in the year, but as of today, The Likeness is my #1 read in 2009. And from what I’ve read, French is working on a third, this time narrated by Cassie’s boss, Frank Mackey. Until then, I plan to pick up Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, which has been compared to The Likeness. I’m ready for another gothic mystery!

Five stars, Tana!

The Laws of Harmony by Judith Ryan Hendricks
Fiction
Copyright 2009 Harper
Finished on 2/5/09
Rating: 4.5/5 (Terrific!!)

Publisher’s Blurb:

In 1989 Sunny Cooper escaped to Albuquerque. Fourteen years later she’s still there, struggling to make a living, to shore up her floundering relationship, and to forget her childhood on a commune, where a freak accident killed her younger sister, Mari.

Just when the “normal” life Sunny craves appears to be within reach, another accident—the sudden death of her fiance, Michael, and revelations that their relationship was not what it seemed—will turn her world upside down. Once again Sunny escapes, this time to the town of Harmony on San Miguel Island. But a surprising discovery sparks an emotional encounter with her estranged mother and forces both women to reexamine the truth of their memories. Only by making peace with the past can Sunny finally step out of its shadow and into a new life.

Mary Doria Russell. Marisa de los Santos. Jeanne Ray. Rosamunde Pilcher. Barbara Kingsolver. Patricia Gaffney. Elizabeth Berg. Lorna Landvik. Jodi Picoult. What do these authors have in common with Judith Ryan Hendricks? Well, they’re my favorite female authors and I’ve read nearly every single book they’ve written, most of which line the bookcases in my home. I’ve met a couple in person, have a few signed copies of their early novels, and have recently received ARCs of their latest works, accompanied by warm and chatty emails. These are the authors that bring great pleasure to my reading experience; the ones who thrill me when I learn they’ve written a new book; the ones I rave about to friends and customers; the ones who don’t seem to write fast enough for me!

I discovered Judith Ryan Hendricks several years ago when I happened upon her debut novel, Bread Alone. I don’t recall anyone recommending the book to me, so I must’ve fallen for the cover art and blurb. I thoroughly enjoyed the book—so much so that I re-read it prior to reading the sequel (The Baker’s Apprentice). I also loved Hendricks’ stand-alone, Isabel’s Daughter, and was absolutely thrilled to learn she had written a fourth book.

Hendricks sets her stories in some of my favorite locations (the Pacific Northwest) and places I’d love to visit (Santa Fe). She has also made mention of two small beach communities in Southern California (Del Mar and Leucadia), both of which are towns I’ve lived in. In addition to the great settings, Hendricks’ culinary details are also of great appeal to this reader. I discovered and sampled a wonderful recipe for homemade bread in Bread Alone and found my mouth watering as I read the description of several baked items in The Laws of Harmony. Oh, how I wish she had included a recipe for her blackberry brownies!

After spending a couple of weeks cruising the San Juan Islands, I find myself drawn to books describing the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Bread Alone and The Baker’s Apprentice take place in Seattle, but this latest novel takes the reader out of the city and into a friendly community very much like those I encountered in the summer of 2007. I was immediately drawn into Sunny’s life, eager to see what awaits her in Harmony on San Miguel Island. This location reminded me so strongly of Friday Harbor, that I found myself wondering if it was the basis for Hendricks’ fictional community. Could her Ale House be the same as the similarly-named pub on the corner of Front Street (same street name!) in Friday Harbor? It really doesn’t matter one way or another; I loved living vicariously through the characters’ lives, reminded of my own experiences in the years I’ve visited that particular area. I could easily envision Sunny catching a ferry out of Seattle, serving customers an icy cold beer in the Ale House, hanging out with friends in a small independent bookstore, buying fresh seafood at the local fish market, and learning to ride a motorcycle on the windy country roads outside of town. At times, I found myself wishing to trade places with Sunny!

On ferry travel…

Everybody else rushes ahead, apparently knowing exactly where they want to sit. I follow the smell to the cafe, get myself a greasy bacon-and-egg sandwich and take it to an empty seat up front. The boat shudders with the exertions of the big engines as the pilings on either side of us begin to slide away and the window in front of me becomes a giant movie screen of water and sky.

All around me people eat and talk, read newspapers and kiss, play cards and pound on their laptops, oblivious to the gentle pitch of the boat and to the fantasy world just outside the windows—rippling blue-green water, rocky islands upholstered in conifers, shreds of mist. Each time I start to eat, there’s something that distracts me, makes me pause with the sandwich halfway to my mouth—a perfect, toylike red lighthouse or a log cabin tucked into a secluded cove, or the white ellipse of a boat lying at anchor on a glassy bay. I star transfixed, finally forgetting about the sandwich.

I loved reading the detailed passage in which Sunny learns how to ride a small motorcycle for the very first time. My husband has come to own a few motorcycles in recent years and I only just recently rode as a passenger for the first time a little over a year ago. I have my own helmet and Kevlar-padded jacket, but I don’t own a bike, nor have I ever ridden alone. And I wouldn’t say that after reading the half dozen pages describing how to ride a motorcycle, I’m capable of hopping on a bike and riding off into the sunset. However, I do feel like I have a better understanding of how the clutch, throttle, shifter and brakes work on a motorcycle. As Sunny says, it’s so illogical!

On riding a motorcycle - alone - for the first time…

“Feet up!” he yells, and the bike magically balances itself. It feels like flying. I hear myself laughing inside the helmet, like a little kid with the training wheels off for the first time. Suddenly I understand the thrill of this, and then almost as suddenly I see the driveway fast approaching. Shit! How do I brake? My mind’s gone blank.

I love discovering new music, so I’m especially happy when an author incorporates real music into a narrative. Hendricks’ main character listens to a CD entitled Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), a Charlie Haden/Pat Metheny collaboration. It’s a simple arrangement combining the music of an accoustic guitar and bass into soothing pieces. I’ve listened to the sample tracks and have decided I need to own this album.

After all this gushing, I do have one complaint. Even with 478 pages, this book simply wasn’t long enough! As I turned that final page, I was sorry to see Sunny’s story come to an end. While there weren’t any holes in the plot, I felt there was more to reveal and I hope we haven’t read the last of Sunny and her life on San Miguel Island. Either way, you can bet that The Laws of Harmony will be one of my favorite recommendations and that I’ll eagerly await any news of a fifth book in the coming years!

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
Fiction - Culinary
2009 J. P. Putnam’s Sons
Finished on 3/14/09
Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Product Description:

Once a month on Monday night, eight students gather in Lillian’s restaurant for a cooking class. Among them is Claire, a young woman coming to terms with her new identity as a mother; Tom, a lawyer whose life has been overturned by loss; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer adapting to life in America; and Carl and Helen, a long-married couple whose union contains surprises the rest of the class would never suspect.

The students have come to learn the art behind Lillian’s soulful dishes, but it soon becomes clear that each seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. One by one they are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of what they create, including a white-on-white cake that prompts wistful reflections on the sweet fragility of love, and a garlic and red sauce that seems to spark one romance but end another. Over time, the paths of the students mingle and intertwine, and the essence of Lillian’s cooking expands beyond the restaurant and into the secret corners of their lives, with results that are often unexpected, and always delicious.

Anyone who knows me well or has been following my blog knows how much I love to cook and try new recipes. Well, this was certainly my kind of book! I loved the mouthwatering descriptions of the various dishes the students learned to create in their eight months at The School of Essential Ingredients. The author does a marvelous job weaving each character’s background history into the monthly classes, revealing their hopes and dreams, as well as the pain and sorrow in their private lives. I fell in love with each and every character and as I turned the final page, it was with great sadness, as I knew I would soon find myself missing the characters and Lillian’s restaurant. 

The cooking class was held in a restaurant named Lillian’s, on the main street of town, almost hidden by a front garden dense with ancient cherry trees, roses, and the waving spikes and soft mounds of green herbs. Set between the straight lines of a bank and the local movie theater, the restaurant was oddly incongruous, a moment of lush colors and gently moving curves, like an affair in the midst of an otherwise orderly life. Passersby often reached out to run their hands along the tops of the lavender bushes that stretched luxuriantly above the cast-iron fence, the soft, dusty scent remaining on their fingers for hours after.

Those who entered the gate and followed the winding brick path through the garden discovered an Arts and Crafts house whose front rooms had been converted into a dining area. There were no more than ten tables in all, each table’s personality defined by nearby architectural elements, one nestled into a bay window, another engaged in companionable conversation with a built-in bookshelf. Some tables had views of the garden, while others, hidden like secrets in the darker, protected corners of the room, held their patrons’ attention within the edges of their tabletops.

Doesn’t this sound lovely? Oh, how I’d love to take a cooking class in a restaurant such as this, especially one taught by such a down-to-earth person as Lillian.

I first discovered The School of Essential Ingredients when it arrived in the bookstore. The beautiful cover art, graced with a lovely blurb by another favorite author, caught my attention:

A delicate, meltingly lovely hymn to food and friendship. Lillian’s kitchen is a place where the world works the way it should. You’ll want to tuck yourself into one warm corner of it and stay all day.(Marisa de los Santos, author of Love Walked In)

Reading those words, I knew this was a book I had to buy. But as luck would have it, I won an autographed copy after entering a contest over on Lisa’s blog. The inscription in my copy reads, “For Lesley, who loves books and food… Erica Bauermeister”

I found myself wishing Erica had included recipes for all the wonderful dishes described within this gem of a book. I was practically drooling on the pages as the students learned how to bake crab in a lemony-wine sauce (with garlic and butter, of course). The Thanksgiving meal is one I’d love to try my hand at! Imagine how delicious a meal such as this would taste:

Doesn’t that sound like a refreshing alternative to the traditional meal, heavy with mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls and gravy? And who doesn’t love cheese? After reading the description of a cheese fondue dinner, I was ready to run down to the corner market to buy a block of Gruyere and Emmenthaler and a huge loaf of crusty artisan bread. Mmmmmmmmm. As you can imagine, this is not a book to read when you’re hungry and dinner is several hours away. 

On owning a restaurant:

Lillian loved best the moment before she turned on the lights. She would stand in the restaurant kitchen doorway, rain-soaked air behind her, and let the smells come to her–ripe sourdough yeast, sweet-dirt coffee, and garlic, mellowing as it lingered. Under them, more elusive, stirred the faint essence of fresh meat, raw tomatoes, cantaloupe, water on lettuce. Lillian breathed in, feeling the smells move about and through her, even as she searched out those that might suggest a rotting orange at the bottom of a pile, or whether the new assistant chef was still double-dosing the curry dishes. She was. The girl was a daughter of a friend and good enough with knives, but some days, Lillian thought with a sigh, it was like trying to teach subtlety to a thunderstorm.

On chocolate:

The hard, round cake of chocolate was wrapped in yellow plastic with red stripes, shiny and dark when she opened it. The chocolate made a rough sound as it brushed across the fine section of the grater, falling in soft clouds onto the counter, releasing a scent of dusty back rooms filled with bittersweet chocolate and old love letters, the bottom drawers of antique desks and the last leaves of autumn, almonds and cinnamon and sugar.

On weather in the Northwest:

Helen and Carl walked up the main street of town to the cooking class. It was a clear, cold evening in early February, the end of a miraculously blue day blown in from the north like a celebration. People in the Northwest tended to greet such weather with a child’s sense of joy, strangers exchanged grins, houses were suddenly cleaner, and neighbors could be found in their yards in shirtsleeves, regardless of the temperature, indulging a sudden desire to dig in rich, dark dirt.

On love:

More than anyone he knew, Antonia carried these things with her, in the million sweet and careful rituals that still made up her life, no matter what country she was in. He saw it in the way she cut bread, or drank wine[...] Antonia made celebrations of things he had always dismissed as moments to be rushed through on the way to something more important. Being around her, he found even everyday experiences were deeper, nuanced, satisfaction and awareness slipped in between the layers of life like love notes hidden in the pages of a textbook.

The School of Essential Ingredients is one of those books that could have easily been consumed over the course of a weekend. Well aware that this is a debut novel (with no backlist to satisfy me until Bauermeister’s next release), I chose to savor it as slowly as possible. And, it’s definitely going on my keeper shelf for future re-reads. Fans of Marisa de los Santos, Joanne Harris, Elin Hilderbrand, and Elizabeth Berg will not be disappointed. I know I wasn’t!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Young Adult Fiction
2008 Scholastic Press
Finished on 4/15/09
Rating: 4.5/5 (Terrific!)

Product Description:

Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, “The Hunger Games.” The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat’s sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

Wow! It’s been a while since I’ve read such a good teen novel. While not quite as good as The Book Thief, it sure comes a lot closer than Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight series. It may even be as good as theHarry Potter books.

The Hunger Games was my book club’s choice for this month’s discussion. We had a fantastic meeting, and yes, we all loved it. I’ve gotten to where I don’t read any reviews or even the dust cover blurbs prior to reading a book, as I prefer to go in completely unaware of what might take place between the covers. And since this was a book club choice, I just assumed I’d give it a try without really knowing what it was about. As I began reading, I immediately wondered what I was getting into. I’d heard very good comments about the book, but wasn’t aware of the premise of the “games.” I had an uneasy feeling that it would be a bleak, depressing story about killing and death, but I continued on and quickly became engrossed in the characters and story. I think the author did a very good job of keeping the story interesting and suspenseful without resorting to gratuitous violence and gore. There was no lingering detailed description of the actual killings and I never felt uneasy or disturbed by the acts of violence.

On life in Panem:

When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Prim might begin to repeat my words and then where would we be?

On the Hunger Games:

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.

Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch — this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. “Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen.”

To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the other. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.

Fans of The Giver (Lois Lowry), Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card),Lord of the Flies (William Golding), The Most Dangerous Game (short story by Richard Connell) and, yes, the Twilight series (Stephenie Meyers) will not be disappointed. I know I’m not alone when I say I’m anxiously awaiting the release of Catching Fire, the second in the trilogy, which is due out on September 1st. Until then, I may have to check out the first in Collins’ young reader series, Gregor The Overlander (Underland Chronicles).

Final words: Highly addictive!!

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Fiction
2009 Ballantine Books
Finished on 1/5/09
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
ARC - Due out on January 27, 2009

Publisher’s Blurb

In 1986, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. The hotel has been boarded up for decades, but now a new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, memories take him back to the 1940s.

At the height of the war, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student, at the exclusive Rainier Academy. They forge a friendship—and an innocent love—that transcend the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family are evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Now Henry is trying to make sense of the past—to explain the actions of his nationalistic father; to bridge the gap between himself and his modern Chinese American son; to confront the choices he made many years ago. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable portrait of a couple whose story teaches us the power of forgiveness.

Jamie Ford is the son of American and Chinese parents and an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. An award-winning short-story writer, he lives in Great Falls, Montana. This is his first novel.

I received this book from the publisher back in August, but didn’t feel compelled to pick it up until after Christmas. What luck that it was my first completed book of the New Year; it’s a winner! I love the time period and location (a bit reminiscent of Gutterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars) and especially enjoy coming-of-age stories, so this was right up my alley. The narrative is set in 1986, flashing back to the years between 1942 and 1945 when Henry and Keiko are in the fifth grade.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is bound to be a popular selection among book groups, particularly those in the Pacific Northwest. I enjoyed the story, although at times thought it read more like a young adult novel than general fiction. The writing is occasionally simplistic and I finished reading the novel without a single lyrical passage to share. And yet, I couldn’t put this book down! I found Ford’s book much more satisfying than Sandra Dallas’ Tall Grass (another coming-of-age novel depicting the internment camps during World War II), particularly enjoying the references to Seattle’s jazz history, including that of Oscar Holden.

Here are a couple of photos from the author’s website. Go here to see more.

VJ Day in Seattle

I’ll be anxious to hear what others think of this debut novel.

Wife in the North by Judith O’Reilly
Memoir
2008 Public Affairs Books
Finished on 12/12/08
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher’s Blurb:

Perhaps it was because she was pregnant and hormones had eaten her brain that Judith O’Reilly was persuaded by her husband to leave London for the northern wilds. But pregnancy hadn’t addled her enough not to have a back-up plan: If life in the country didn’t measure up, the family would return to the city.

Far from home, Judith, a journalist and mother of three young children, discovers just how tough an assignment making a new life is. In the heart of the country, with no decent coffee in sight, Judith swaps high heels for rubber boots and media-darlings for evangelical strangers and farmers’ wives in an effort to do that simple thing women do—make hers a happy family.

Her headlong foray into the country invites adventure at every turn. As she adjusts to the lay of the land and searches for her own true north in an alien landscape, her story offers a hilarious, heartfelt reflection of how to navigate the challenges and rewards of motherhood, marriage, and family.

Oh, my gosh! I couldn’t have chosen a better time to read this hilarious book. With its bloglike daily posts, it was a perfect read for the hectic holiday season. I could pick it up and set it down without losing the moment of the narrative, much like catching up on a favorite blog after being away from the computer for a week or so.

O’Reilly is a wonderful storyteller. She had me laughing out loud one moment and bringing a lump to my throat the next. And as with any good book, I wound up marking numerous passages with Post-it Notes.

On mothers and daughters:

One day you wrap, in acid-free tissue layers, the daughter in you. You admire it as you put away its girlish chiffon colours, you mourn its passing as you stand on tiptoe to put it away on the very highest shelf. From a hanger, you take off and shake out the sensible navy role of mother and slip it on. Mother not only to your children but to your own mother. I am at that moment.

On friendship:

Real friends I count like beads on a rosary… You do not keep every friend you ever make. If you are lucky, you keep one or maybe two from the pigeonholes of life: study, jobs, children. One of the best places for making friends is, of course, the office. I have friends from all of the places I worked, newspapers and TV. If you invest wisely, you double them as they grow old and marry. Some friends become another family. Some friends you talk to once a year. A few are there in every crisis and extremity. You hurt when they hurt. There are times you put down the phone when they have read you the latest chapter of their life and weep for them. Some occasionally disappoint. Occasionally, you disappoint back. You try to listen. In sadness and disaster, you say: “I love you,” and hope they can hear between their shouts of pain. You say: “I’m here for you,” and hope they can see you in their darkness. It seems the least that you can do.

On country life and laundry:

I do things in Northumberland that I would never do otherwise. I hang out washing. I enjoy the weight of a wet shirt in my hand, the reach of my arm and the tidy clip of the plastic peg. Sunshine in my eyes, I squint and string the clothes along the line which runs across the common grass between the sea-fringed fields and the cottages. Then, I catch and heave and hoist them up to the clouds; a length of skinny, metal piping, standing guard, the line caught in its wooden, snake-tongued mouth. They flap and flurry in the northern breezes, lift, noisy and excited in the whippy gusts straight blown from the world’s other side to here. It relaxes me to do it, see it, hear it.

On grief:

I took the Yorkshire Mother out to lunch. It was a strange sort of occasion. She has four sons, sprawling, brawling sorts of boys, much like my own, and an older daughter. She should have five sons, not four. Her eldest would have been twenty-one today but no key to the door for him. Dead before his time, seven years ago. Last week, waiting for our boys to come out of school, she said: “Wednesday would have been his birthday. I’ll be going to his grave instead.” My heart took on the colour of her sadness. I said: “Would it be weird to have lunch with me before you go?” A mother does not forget a son’s birthday however far from home he is. We chinked our glasses, drank up the champagne fizz, wiped out the bubbles with our fingers, then filled the empty glasses with our tears.

I truly enjoyed this gem of a book and can think of several friends I’d recommend it to. However, I do have a couple of minor quibbles. About halfway through, I began to grow tired of the author’s sarcastic complaints about her husband and her unhappiness in her new location. I suspect she wanted to show an honest reaction to the family’s relocation 350 miles north of her beloved London, yet I couldn’t help but cringe when she started to complain once again. Kind of like that awkward feeling you get when you’re at a dinner party and a husband or wife begins to criticize the other spouse in front of the guests. You feel badly, wishing you weren’t a witness to their rants. You love them and enjoy their company, but would rather not have an intimate knowledge of their unhappiness.

On compromise and dissatisfaction:

My husband left for London for two weeks. Let me see, how long have we lived here. Oh yes, three weeks. How pregnant am I? Seven months. How many children do I have? Two and a bit. Do I want to be here? No. Excellent. He has a deadline, he always seems to have a deadline. He is the one who wants to live up here, yet he is the one who has to work away for weeks at a time. I knew he would have to go back soon after we moved: he can do part of his job down the line but not all of it. Seeing him go—not having him here—is about as hard as I thought it would be. He called me. He said: “I miss you.” I gripped the phone, said, “If we lived in London, you wouldn’t have to miss me.”

and

One of my acute frustrations living up here is the lack of space. Outside it’s all glorious green rolling acres everywhere while the beaches are empty stretches of washed sand. Inside this rural dream country life, it is hell. Five of us squished together in what is effectively a two-bedroom, toy-strewn hovel. Six, counting Girl Friday when she is here. The house is like something from eighteenth-century pre-revolution England—all cottage industry and screaming children with a little less smallpox.

I also feel Wife in the North would have been even more enjoyable if it weren’t quite so long. The stories (good and bad) became repetitious and I actually considered setting the book aside for a bit, if not entirely. I’m glad I continued on, though. The author shares a touching piece of personal history in the final pages and I would have hated to have missed reading those passages.

Wife in the North is a bit reminiscent of Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence
(yes, there’s a home renovation) and Jeannie Laskas’ Fifty Acres and a Poodle (no, there aren’t any cute animal tales). Great laughs, touching stories, and a lovely glimpse into life in the country.

You can peruse Judith’s blog, but be aware if you plan to read her book, many (if not all) of her posts prior to December 31, 2007 are included in the book.

There’s also a very good review by a Waterstone’s bookseller here.

‘Tis The Season! by Lorna Landvik
Contemporary Fiction - Epistolary
2008 Ballantine Books
Finished on 11/2/08
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Product Description

Bestselling author Lorna Landvik shines in this delightful holiday novel of redemption and forgiveness.

Heiress Caroline Dixon has managed to alienate nearly everyone with her alcohol-fueled antics, which have also provided near-constant fodder for the poison-pen tabloids and their gossip-hungry readers. But like so many girls-behaving-badly, the twenty-six-year-old socialite gets her comeuppance, followed by a newfound attempt to live a saner existence, or at least one more firmly rooted in the real world.

As Caro tentatively begins atoning for past misdeeds, she reaches out to two wonderful people who years ago brought meaning to her life: her former nanny, Astrid Brevald, now living in Norway and Arizona dude ranch owner, Cyril Dale. While Astrid fondly remembers Caro as a special, sweet little girl left in her charge, Cyril recalls how he and his late wife were quite taken with the quick-witted teenager Caro had become when she spent a difficult period in her life at the ranch as her father was dying.

In a series of e-mail exchanges, Caro reveals the depth of her pain and the lengths she went to hide it. In turn, Astrid and Cyril share their own stories of challenging times and offer the unconditional support this young woman has never known. The correspondence leads to the promise of a reunion, just in time for Christmas. But the holiday brings unexpected revelations that change the way everyone sees themselves and one another.

At once heartfelt and witty, ’Tis the Season! bears good tidings of great joy about the human condition–that down and out doesn’t mean over and done, that the things we need most are closer than we know, and that the true measure of one’s worth rests in the boundless depths of the soul.

I don’t usually read “holiday” books, but a couple of weeks ago, as I was helping set one of the Christmas tables at work, I spied the new Lorna Landvik book. The colorful cover caught my eye, so I flipped it open and discovered it’s an epistolary. What perfect timing!! I had just set my new end cap and knew this would be the perfect eye-catching book to sit in the #1 position on the display. Of course, I really like to have read all the books I recommend, so I got a copy and brought it home to read as soon as I finished my current book.

What a treat!! I could have easily read it in an afternoon, but as life seems to go around here, I wound up reading it over the course of two days.

It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed one of Landvik’s books (gave up on The Tall Pine Polka and haven’t felt compelled to read The View from Mount Joy), but this is a winner! As with most epistolaries, the exchange of correspondences between multiple characters takes a bit of time settling into who’s who. But once the characters were established, I quickly devoured the book. And, just in case you’re not a fan of Christmas-type books, this spans five months prior to Christmas. I’m tempted to say it really isn’t a holiday book at all. Just happens to conclude in December.

This is definitely a quick read, but it’s also one of those feel-good books that we can all benefit from during this hectic and stressful time of year.

If I haven’t been able to convince you, check out Lesa’s review for more details. ‘Tis the Season! won’t wind up on my Top Ten for 2008, but I’m so glad I took the time to read it. Perfect brain candy after a couple of very long months!

The Darker Side by Cody McFadyen
Thriller
2008 Bantam
368 pages
Finished on 8/28/08
Rating: 4.5/5 Very Good

Publisher’s Blurb:

Cody McFadyen has shocked even the most jaded suspense fans with Shadow Man and The Face of Death. Now comes a thriller that outdoes them all, featuring a psychopath on a perverse crusade of murder. And the one woman who can stop him may have to cross the line to do it.

A lie, a long-ago affair, a dark desire—what secret was a very private young woman keeping that led to her very public murder? That’s the question FBI special agent Smoky Barrett and her handpicked team of experienced manhunters are summoned to answer by order of the FBI director himself. Brilliant, merciless, righteous, the killer Smoky is hunting is on his own personal mission. For in his eyes no one is innocent. Soon Smokey will have to confront a flawless killer who knows her flaws with murderous intimacy.

McFadyen has done it again. He’s written a gritty, disturbing thriller that kept me wondering what kind of person writes about such horrific killings, and perhaps more importantly, what kind of person reads them?! The Darker Side reads a bit like true crime (although my experience with that genre is limited to Helter Skelter), full of tension and edginess that invades my thoughts and dreams. As with all my favorite series, it’s the characters that keep me coming back. Smoky’s an intriguing heroine and I enjoyed learning more about her and her co-workers, curious to learn more about the life of an FBI agent.

On murder…

The murdered move me. Good or bad, they had hopes and dreams and loves. They once lived, like all of us, in a world where the deck is stacked against living. Between cancer or crashes on the freeway or dropping dead of a heart attack with a glass of wine in your hand and a strangled smile on your face, the world gives us plenty of chances to die. Murderers cheat the system, helping things along, rob the victims of something it’s already a fight to keep. This offends me. I hated it the first time I saw it and I hate it even more now.

One of my frustrations with series of this genre is the need to outline the back-story of previous books. Often I’ll find myself a bit annoyed and bored when an author spends too much time reminding the reader of significant events from an earlier work. This was not the case with The Darker Side. McFadyen writes like a veteran, deftly laying out all the necessary details without falling into the trap of overstating the obvious or padding the story with unnecessary commentary. I was immediately drawn into the narrative; the pacing is consistent and riveting, and the situations and dialogue completely believable. And, yes, in spite of the nature of these thrillers, I’ll be one of the first in line to buy Cody’s next book.

And now for a couple of give-aways! I have a brand new mass market copy of The Face of Death (Cody’s second book in this series), as well as an ARC of The Darker Side. Leave me a comment with the title of the book you’re interested in and I’ll pick the winners in one week.

If you’re like me and curious as to how Cody can create such evil villains (and how this affects him), check out his guest appearance here and here.

Better yet, Cody now has a blog! You can find it (and pictures of his dogs, aka “The Black Forces of Destruction”) on his website.

Note to Cody: I like this title much better than Secret Sins!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Contemporary Fiction - Epistolary
2008 The Dial Press
Finished on 7/23/08
Rating: 4.75//5 (Fabulous!)
ARC - Release date of July 29th
“Here’s who will love this book—anyone who nods in profound agreement with the statement,’Reading keeps you from going gaga.’ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a delight. Tart, insightful and fun.”—Mary Doria Russell, author of The Sparrow, A Thread of Grace and Dreamers of the Day.

Publisher’s Blurb:

“…I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’d never met, a native of Guernsey, the British island once occupied by the Nazis. He’d come across her name on the flyleaf of a secondhand volume by Charles Lamb. Perhaps she could tell him where he might find more books by this author.

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, she is drawn into the world of this man and his friends, all members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a unique book club formed in a unique, spur-of-the-moment way: as an alibi to protect its members from arrest by the Germans.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s charming, deeply human members, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Through their letters she learns about their island, their taste in books, and the powerful, transformative impact the recent German occupations has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds there will change her forever.

Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.

The minute I read the above blurb, I knew this was my kind of book. I love epistolary works (84, Charing Cross Road is one of my all-time favorites!) and I love books set during (and post) World War II. I was immediately drawn into Juliet’s story and found myself reading late into the night, savoring each letter, dreading the impending finale as it drew near.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a delightful book and a joy to read! I chuckled to myself on several occasions, felt a gentle tug at my heartstrings toward the end of the story, and had a strong desire to book a flight to the island for a month-long getaway! It didn’t take long to realize that this entertaining novel will be among my Top Ten for 2008 and one I’ll enjoy recommending to friends, family and customers at work.

On booksellers…

I love seeing the bookshops and meeting the booksellers—booksellers really are a special breed. No one in their right mind would take up clerking in a bookstore for the salary, and no proprietor in his right mind would want to own one—the margin of profit is too small. So, it has to be a love of readers and reading that makes them do it—along with first dibs on the new books.

On literary societies…

None of us had any experience with literary societies, so we made our own rules: we took turns speaking about the books we’d read. At the start, we tried to be calm and objective, but that soon fell away, and the purpose of the speakers was to goad the listeners into wanting to read the book themselves. Once two members had read the same book, they could argue, which was our great delight. We read books, talked books, argued over books, and became dearer and dearer to one another. Other Islanders asked to join us, and our evenings together became bright, lively times—we could almost forget, now and then, the darkness outside. We still meet every fortnight.

On the Occupation…

Due to your kind offices, I have received lovely, long letters from Mrs. Maugery and Isola Pribby. I hadn’t realized that the Germans permitted no outside news at all, not even letters, to reach Guernsey. It surprised me so much. It shouldn’t have—I knew the Channel Islands had been occupied, but I never, not once, thought what that might have entailed. Willful ignorance is all I can call it. So, I am off to the London Library to educate myself. The library suffered terrible bomb damage, but the floors are safe to walk on again, all the books that could be saved are back on the shelf, and I know they have collected all the Times from 1900 to—yesterday. I shall study up on the Occupation.

On the evacuation of the children…

Eli left Guernsey on 20th June, along with the thousands of babies and schoolchildren who were evacuated to England. We knew the Germans were coming and Jane worried for his safety here. The doctor would not let Jane sail with them, the baby’s birth being so close.

Eli did not come back until the war was over—and they did send all the children home at once. That was a day! More wonderful even than when the British soldiers came to liberate Guernsey. Eli, he was the first boy down the gangway—he’d grown long legs in five years—and I don’t think I could have left off hugging him to me, if Isola hadn’t pushed me a bit so she could hug him herself.

On the island and slave labor…

My greatest pleasure has been in resuming my evening walks along the cliff tops. The Channel is no longer framed in rolls of barbed wire, the view is unbroken by huge VERBOTEN signs. The mines are gone from our beaches, and I can walk when, where, and for as long as I like. If I stand on the cliffs and turn out to face the sea, I don’t see the ugly cement bunkers behind me, or the land naked without its trees. Not even the Germans could ruin the sea.

This summer the gorse will begin to grow around the fortifications, and by next year, perhaps vines will creep all over them. I hope they are soon covered. For all I can look away, I will never be able to forget how they were made.

The Todt workers built them. I know you have heard of Germany’s slave workers in camps on the continent, but did you know that Hitler sent over sixteen thousand of them here, to the Channel Islands?

Hitler was fanatic about fortifying these islands—England was never to get them back! His generals called it Island Madness. He ordered large-gun emplacements, anti-tank walls on the beaches, hundreds of bunkers and batteries, arms and bomb depots, miles and miles of underground tunnels, a huge underground hospital, and a railroad to cross the island to carry materials. The coastal fortifications were absurd—the Channel Isles were better fortified than the Atlantic Wall built against an Allied invasion. The installations jutted out over every bay. The Third Reich was to last one thousand years—in concrete.

On cooking…

I had a small supper party for him—cooked by me alone, and edible too. Will Thisbee gave me The Beginner’s Cook-Book for Girl Guides. It was just the thing; the writer assumes you know nothing about cookery and writes useful hints—”When adding eggs, break the shells first.”

Epistolary novels bring a sense of intimacy to the reader, and the Guernsey characters and location are so nicely drawn, I felt a bit sad, as though I were saying goodbye to a group of new friends as I finished the final page of this fabulous book. I was also saddened to learn that Mary Ann Shaffer died in February at the age of 73. What a shame that she didn’t live long enough to see her first published novel. I hope her niece (and co-author), Annie Barrows, continues to write, possibly with a follow-up to this wonderful story. It was a joy to read and one I’ll return to in the coming years.

I have a feeling this book will not only be quite popular with book groups, but it’s also the sort that is sure to be passed around among friends and co-workers.

Cornflower claims, Mary Ann Shaffer’s The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is an utter joy of a book, beautifully judged, witty, lively, almost Mitfordesque at times, sparky, extremely touching, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. To read her complete review, go here.

You can find The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society website here.

Made in the U.S.A. by Billie Letts
Contemporary Fiction
2008 Grand Central Publishing
Finished on 6/29/08
Rating: 2.5/5 (Fair)

Fate sometimes thought that God was looking out for him and Lutie. The notes left for them, and the food they found on the hood of the car and in the library. All of that came from someone. And if it didn’t come from God, then maybe Fate’s mother was watching over them or maybe even Floy. But he felt pretty certain that it wasn’t his daddy because he didn’t figure Jim McFee had the status of an angel.

Product Description

The bestselling author of Where the Heart Is returns with a heartrending tale of two children in search of a place to call home.

Lutie McFee’s history has taught her to avoid attachments…to people, to places, and to almost everything. With her mother long dead and her father long gone to find his fortune in Las Vegas, 15-year-old Lutie lives in the god-forsaken town of Spearfish, South Dakota with her twelve-year-old brother, Fate, and Floy Satterfield, the 300-pound ex-girlfriend of her father. While Lutie shoplifts for kicks, Fate spends most of his time reading, watching weird TV shows and worrying about global warming and the endangerment of pandas. As if their life is not dismal enough, one day, while shopping in their local Wal-Mart, Floy keels over and the two motherless kids are suddenly faced with the choice of becoming wards of the state or hightailing it out of town in Floy’s old Pontiac. Choosing the latter, they head off to Las Vegas in search of a father who has no known address, no phone number and, clearly, no interest in the kids he left behind.

Made in the U.S.A. is the alternately heartbreaking and life-affirming story of two gutsy children who must discover how cruel, unfair and frightening the world is before they come to a place they can finally call home.

I had such high hopes for this new release by Billie Letts. I loved all three of her previous books (The Honk and Holler Opening Soon, Where the Heart Is and Shoot the Moon), each peopled with quirky memorable characters and situations. Unfortunately, Letts fails to deliver with Made in the U.S.A., which was nothing but a lot of simplistic plotting and one-dimensional characters. And, if the thin (and ultimately sappy) storyline wasn’t bad enough, the depressing situations Lutie brought upon herself (shoplifting, fake ids, drugs, prostitution and pornography) were almost enough to make me give up on the book before I’d reached the halfway mark. I desperately wanted to root for these pathetic, homeless runaways, but found it more and more difficult to work up any sympathy. The only reason I finished was to see how it all turned out. I needn’t have bothered, as it was pretty much how I guessed.

Early reviews have claimed Made In the U.S.A. is a heartbreaking, yet uplifting story. Maybe I have a cold heart, but I didn’t feel anything other than annoyance and a sense of deep disappointment in this mediocre effort by Letts, especially in view of her previous literary accomplishments.

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton
Contemporary Fiction
2008 Ballantine Books
Finished on 5/28/08
Rating: 3.5 (Good)
ARC - Due out on June 17

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

~Robert Frost

Product Description

Friendship, loyalty, and love lie at the heart of Meg Waite Clayton’s beautifully written, poignant, and sweeping novel of five women who, over the course of four decades, come to redefine what it means to be family.

For thirty-five years, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally have met every Wednesday at the park near their homes in Palo Alto, California. Defined when they first meet by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love that has enveloped most of the Bay Area in 1967. These “Wednesday Sisters” seem to have little in common: Frankie is a timid transplant from Chicago, brutally blunt Linda is a remarkable athlete, Kath is a Kentucky debutante, quiet Ally has a secret, and quirky, ultra-intelligent Brett wears little white gloves with her miniskirts. But they are bonded by a shared love of both literature – Fitzgerald, Eliot, Austen, du Maurier, Plath, and Dickens – and the Miss America Pageant, which they watch together every year.

As the years roll on and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers circle to express their hopes and dreams through poems, stories, and, eventually, books. Along the way, they experience history in the making: Vietnam, the race for the moon, and a women’s movement that challenges everything they have ever thought about themselves, while at the same time supporting one another through changes in their personal lives brought on by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success.

Humorous and moving, The Wednesday Sisters is a literary feast for book lovers that earns a place among those popular works that honor the joyful, mysterious, unbreakable bonds between friends.

I was chatting with my next door neighbor last weekend and she mentioned that when her children were little, she and several other mothers in the neighborhood would get together for coffee every morning. The woman who lived in our house back in those days would hang a quilt (decorated with a coffee cup) out on the front porch to invite the other mothers to stop by for coffee and a visit. Oh, how I would’ve loved to have had a group of friends to get together with when I was a young mother. I was a single mom, working and going to school, so we missed out on the whole playgroup thing. It wasn’t until my daughter was in 3rd grade that I became a stay-at-home mom, but by that time we were living on an acreage, far removed from a neighborhood full of other young families. I was always a bit envious of those moms who got together on a regular basis, sharing advice on teething, potty-training, and how to deal with a picky eater. However, I did have a couple of very good friends to whom I could turn with my questions, as well as offering my own helpful suggestions when asked. I don’t know how any young mother can survive those early years without the love and support of at least one good friend.

Over the years, I’ve learned that friends come and go, especially when one moves around as much as I have. However, I still keep in touch (though not as often as in years past) with maybe a half-dozen friends that I knew from school. I have about the same number of very good friends who live nearby. Each is the kind of friend who would drop everything and rush to my aid if I needed them - even in the middle of the night. I also have several close friends that I’ve come to know from online book groups (we now go back more than 10 years!), as well as all the wonderful people I’ve met since I began blogging two years ago. In many ways, these online groups are much like the gatherings of my neighbor’s era. We chat about the weather and what we’re reading, share tidbits of news about our children (and grandchildren), discuss our aches and pains and illnesses (our own and those of our loved-ones), and offer up virtual hugs and comfort when one of our pets, children or parents dies. So, between my face-to-face friends and my Internet friends, my life is richer than ever before, even in the absence of a front-porch coffee gathering occasioned by the hanging of a signal quilt.

Meg Waite Clayton offers a story of friendship and loyalty, set against the backdrop of the women’s movement. I could easily have been a six-year-old daughter of one of the characters. I have a vague recollection of segregated want-ads and 18-year-olds gaining the right to vote, yet there is probably a lot about the women’s movement that I take for granted. Clayton’s passion for research is apparent, as she incorporates pop culture and historical facts throughout the narrative, and I enjoyed learning about how it felt to be a young woman and mother during the late Sixties and early Seventies.

I was a little put off by the cliché of yet another friendship book in which one woman has marital problems, another struggles to have a baby, and another faces a serious health issue. However, it was this particular character’s illness that drew me deeper into the book, making me care just a little more than I had up to that point.

Recent “friendship books” have centered around book groups, so it was refreshing to read about a group of aspiring writers, thus getting a glimpse into the unfamiliar world of would-be novelists rather than the more familiar world of readers. I have never felt inspired to try my hand at writing a novel (no NaNoWriMo for me!), but I’ve always been intrigued by the way in which a novel comes to be. Like a beautiful painting, it almost seems like it’s been magically created, rather than being the result of long, hard days of solitude and hard work performed under the omnipresent threat of (sometimes brutal) rejection.

The women in The Wednesday Sisters had an annual tradition of watching the Miss America Pageant, something I’ve never been a fan of and I can honestly say I’ve never watched it more than once (and don’t have any lasting memory of any of it!). However, over the years, I’ve watched many hours of the Johnny Carson show, so it didn’t surprise me that my favorite scene from the book was when the women got to attend one of his shows. I won’t spoil the book with an explanation of why they were there, but it was definitely a highlight!

I know I’ve said it in other reviews, but I have to say once again that timing is everything. It’s at times like this that I really hate rating a book. I should know by now that late May is not a good time for me to read anything of substance. I should either re-read an old favorite or continue with some lightweight mystery series. I should also know that sitting in a hospital waiting area or a room in ICU is not conducive to quality reading. Having said that, I believe this book has the potential to be a popular choice among reading groups, as well as one that friends will want to share with one another. It reminds us of the value of true friendship, without resorting to sappy sentimentality and stereotypes. Don’t be put off by my middle-of-the-road rating. Lesa has written a lovely review that I encourage everyone to read. And honestly, how can anyone not like a book that includes the following epigram (from one of my favorite authors and book):

Where there is great love,
there are always miracles.
— Willa Cather,
Death Comes for the Archbishop

Be sure to check out Meg’s website! Someone’s put a lot of effort into it and I enjoyed it both before and after reading the book.

Stone Creek by Victoria Lustbader
Contemporary Fiction
2008 HarperCollins
Finished on 5/18/08
Rating: 3.5 (Good)

Publisher’s Description:

In a small town in upstate New York, a random meeting will offer hope and the chance of love for two lonely people.

Though he still grieves for the young wife he loved and lost, Danny, a widower, knows he must move on for the sake of Caleb, his five-year-old son. Lily has arrived at her summer house, determined to forget her yearning for a child while her high-powered workaholic husband, Paul, remains in New York.

When Lily and Danny meet while volunteering for a local charity, something immediate and undeniable happens between them. Neither one can ignore that Lily is married and ten years older than Danny, but it is Danny’s son, Caleb, who continues to bring them together. Missing his mother, Caleb is growing attached to Lily, and neither Danny nor she wants to upset the delicate balance that holds the boy’s happiness. But Danny and Lily find themselves, too, balancing on a high-wire act between happiness and despair.

Stone Creek is a novel of tremendous emotional impact that illuminates the power of love and loss to transform — and break — the human heart.

I’d never heard of Victoria Lustbader until I stumbled upon the ARC for Stone Creek. After reading the publisher’s blurb on the back cover, I decided to give it a try, thinking it might be a good summer read. Having recently read Keeper and Kid (which also centers around a father raising a young son after the death of his wife), I was curious to see how this author would handle the issue of a husband’s grief. While the plot had the potential of becoming quite sappy (say, along the lines of Danielle Steel or Nicholas Sparks), I was pleasantly surprised, deciding that it actually had more depth and style than I had expected, more like one of Anne Rivers Siddons’ or Elizabeth Berg’s works than something by Steel or Sparks. As with Berg’s domestic descriptions, Lustbader’s attention to detail enabled me to easily picture the characters and their individual settings, and I was immediately pulled into the story, finding myself looking for a free afternoon to get back to my reading (rather than pulling weeds or washing my filthy car!).

Lustbader is definitely an author I’ll read again. Her previous novel, Hidden, sounds interesting, as does her work-in-progress, currently titled Approaching The Speed of Light. Stone Creek is sure to be a popular beach read and I plan to include it on my upcoming “What’s In Your Beach Bag?” end cap at work. And, to help kick off the beginning of summer, I’m offering my Advanced Reader’s Copy to one of you lucky blogophiles. Leave me a comment and I’ll throw your name in the hat.

The Space Between Before and After by Jean Reynolds Page
Contemporary Fiction
2008 Avon (HarperCollins)
Quit on 5/12/08
Rating: DNF

Product Description

Forty-two and divorced, Holli Templeton has just begun to realize the pleasures of owning her life for the first time. But the experience is short-lived. Her son Conner has unexpectedly fled college in Rhode Island and moved to Texas with his troubled girlfriend, Kilian. This alone is difficult to handle, but as Holli begins to understand the depth of the girl’s problems, concern turns to crisis.

Conner’s situation is worsening, and as if that’s not enough, Holli notices signs of serious decline in the beloved Texas grandmother who raised her. She has no choice but to leave the comfort zone of life in New York and return to her hometown in Texas to care for the people she loves.

In the tight space between these two generations, Holli initially feels lost. The journey back stirs so many unresolved hurts from her childhood. But something else happens in this uneasy homecoming. Comfort arrives in the ethereal presence of the mother long lost to her, and Holli is surprised to find that as she struggles to help her son and grandmother, the wounds of her own past begin to heal.

The space between before and after—easily the most challenging place she has ever known—begins to reveal an unanticipated hope for what the future might hold.

After 134 pages, I decided to call it quits on this novel. I found I simply wasn’t interested in any of the characters and couldn’t stay focused on the plot. But not to worry. I’m not in a slump. My current read is fabulous and I can’t wait to get back to it. It’s a lovely day and I’m heading out to the deck with my book, dog and a cocktail. It’s five-o’clock somewhere!

Compulsion by Jonathan Kellerman
Mystery/Thriller
2008 Ballantine Books
Finished on 5/7/08
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)
Product Description

Once again, the depths of the criminal mind and the darkest side of a glittering city fuel #1 New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman’s brilliant storytelling. And no one conducts a more harrowing and suspenseful manhunt than the modern Sherlock Holmes of the psyche, Dr. Alex Delaware.

A tipsy young woman seeking aid on a desolate highway disappears into the inky black night. A retired schoolteacher is stabbed to death in broad daylight. Two women are butchered after closing time in a small-town beauty parlor. These and other bizarre acts of cruelty and psychopathology are linked only by the killer’s use of luxury vehicles and a baffling lack of motive. The ultimate whodunits, these crimes demand the attention of LAPD detective Milo Sturgis and his collaborator on the crime beat, psychologist Alex Delaware.

What begins with a solitary bloodstain in a stolen sedan quickly spirals outward in odd and unexpected directions, leading Delaware and Sturgis from the well-heeled center of L.A. society to its desperate edges; across the paths of commodities brokers and transvestite hookers; and as far away as New York City, where the search thaws out a long-cold case and exposes a grotesque homicidal crusade. The killer proves to be a fleeting shape-shifter, defying identification, leaving behind dazed witnesses and death–and compelling Alex and Milo to confront the true face of murderous madness.

Brilliant storytelling? I’m not sure I’d go that far, but it was a good read. Maybe I would’ve been more impressed if I knew more about Delaware and Sturgis. Kellerman does a tidy job of filling in the backstory details, but I still felt as if I had walked into a party that’d been going on for several hours.

My husband’s read most (if not all) of this series and thought I might enjoy this new release. I liked it, but I prefer Parker, Sandford, and Lehane (particularly Parker and Sandford’s dry humor). However, this was an entertaining mystery that kept me guessing, so I guess I’m hooked. I’m looking forward to the backlist — all 21 titles!

Summer Blowout by Claire Cook
Contemporary Fiction
2008 Voice (Hyperion)
Finished on 5/2/08
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
ARC - Due out on June 3rd

Book Description

Bella Shaughnessy is addicted to lipstick with names like My Chihuahua Bites and Kiss My Lips, an occupational hazard, since she works as a stylist and makeup artist for her family’s small chain of beauty salons in Marshbury, Massachusetts, along with her four half-brothers and -sisters. The owner is her father, Lucky Shaughnessy, a gregarious, three-times-divorced charmer with Donald Trump hair, who is obsessed with all things Italian and still carries a torch for his first wife, Bella’s mother. After Bella’s own marriage flames out spectacularly when her half-sister runs off with her husband, Bella decides she has seen enough of the damage love can do. She makes a vow: no more men.

Then Bella meets a cute entrepreneur at a college fair, and despite their bickering, they can’t seem to stay away from each other. He also gives her a brilliant business idea, one that just might allow her to share her makeup expertise with the world. A small, well-tressed dog finds her way into her life, and her heart, and she decides to chance that, too. When the whole clan heads to Atlanta for a big Southern wedding, sparks fly–in a summer blowout no one will ever forget.

This hilarious, rambunctious novel is pure Claire Cook: full of juicy conflict and unconditional love.

One of my co-workers just got back from a week in Cabo. She and her husband had a great time and she looks well-rested, in spite of her sunburn! I asked what all they did while there and she said they pretty much just soaked up the rays, reading by the pool. Actually, she read every day. Her husband, on the other hand, finished his book (The Ruins) the first day they were there. She said he didn’t want to get another book and was perfectly content to just relax in the sun. Boy, not me! I’d find the nearest store and buy at least two more books (not that I’d ever go on vacation without a wide assortment of potential reads).

Anyhow, talking to my friend about her trip brought back memories of a vacation my husband and I took back before we were married. We spent 9 days at a lovely resort in Puerto Vallarta. 9 days was probably a bit too long, as there wasn’t a whole lot to do once we’d toured the town and surrounding areas. But this was 1987 and we got a great deal on a hotel/air package as long as we stayed for two weekends. The dollar was certainly worth a lot more than it is twenty years later! (I think the exchange rate was 2,000 pesos to the dollar!) We stayed in a very nice hotel right on the beach, ate lots of lobster, soaked up the rays by the pool, and read lots of books. Looking through my photos, I see that I was in my Danielle Steel phase. (I was young. What can I say?) My husband finished The Tommyknockers (Stephen King), passed it on to me, and headed to the hotel gift shop for something else to read. He settled on Gary Jennings’ tome, Aztec. Weighing in at over a thousand pages, it was certain to keep him happy for the remainder of the vacation! (Great book, by the way. I read it at a later date and loved it!)

I’ve been thinking about vacations and reading. It takes a certain type of trip that allows me the time and setting to read as much as I anticipate. Last summer, I packed far too many books for our cruise through the San Juan Islands. As it happened, I didn’t even read an entire book in the two weeks we were gone! I was having far too good of a time snapping pictures of the scenery and wildlife to be bothered with reading. Even when it was too rainy or foggy to head out for our next location, I simply sat in the pilot house gazing out at the water or watching the other boaters in the marina. I didn’t want to miss a thing and knew I could always read at home.

The same thing happens when we’re visiting family. When we were in Depoe Bay this past fall, I did manage to get a bit more reading in, but for the most part, we played tourists while visiting with my parents. I fell into my normal routine of reading in bed just like I do at home. I certainly didn’t need all the books I packed for that visit, either!

Yet summer and reading seem to go hand-in-hand. We have several “Summer Reading” displays at work, and Bookreporter.com is getting reading to kick off their summer-long Summer Beach Bag of Books promotion. Personally, I think I read more in the winter. I love the long, hot days of summer and find that I spend far more time outside (kayaking, gardening, walking, entertaining friends on our deck) than I do during the winter. Even floating at our favorite pool is too distracting for a good read.

Having said that, I know many of you (especially students and teachers) look forward to three months of reading and relaxation. Do you prefer to use this time to catch-up on some of the heavier tomes such as Moby Dick, War and Peace, or Les Miserables, or is this a time for fluffy brain-candy? If you choose the latter, I’ve got just the book. Summer Blowout is light & fluffy and thoroughly enjoyable. I laughed out loud just as I did when I read Cook’s hugely successful, Must Love Dogs. Throw in a few cute dog antics and you’re guaranteed several chortles and snorts.

I won’t spoil the book for those of you who want to read it, but here are a couple of amusing passages:

The door to the Olde Marshbury Taverne opened, and the father of the bride emerged. He was holding Precious straight out in front of him, and he had a pile of money tucked between one hand and the dog. He walked right over to me and said something about the Board of Health. Or possibly it was the Whore of Wealth.

And then he gave me Precious, still in her cornflower blue taffeta dress with the broach. “Sleep it,” he said.

Or maybe it was, “Keep it.”

and

After that, we just checked each other out for a while. I had no idea what kind of dog she was, since I knew nothing about dogs. She looked kind of like a flying squirrel, except for the ears. She had the ears of a fruit bat. I wonder what she was thinking about me. Maybe she thought I had ears like a fruit bat, too.

and

I rifled through my lipstick drawer, looking for something strong, confident, and hydrating. Beeswax, shea butter, jojoba, and almond oil are all great moisturizing ingredients. I found a tube of Tarte Inside Out Vitamin Lipstick in a deep rose called Revive. It had jojoba, vitamins A, C, E, and K, plus acai, green tea, and lychee extract, so I figured I was covering pretty much all the bases. Maybe if I ate the whole thing like a Popsicle, I wouldn’t have to take my vitamins for a couple of months.

This is a fun read that sucked me in from the first page. I’d say it’s perfect airplane material or a good one for a few hours out by the pool. Even the cover’s cute. How can you possibly resist that adorable little face?

I’m heading to the beach later this summer (Hampton, VA) and plan to pack Cook’s Life’s a Beach in my bag. Maybe this trip I’ll actually read a book!

Keeper and Kid by Edward Hardy
Contemporary Fiction
2008 Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin’s Press)
Finished on 4/29/08
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher’s Blurb

Eight years ago, James Keeper fell in love with his upstairs neighbor in Boston, a sassy pastry chef with gray eyes and a fierce attitude. They got married, found a dog, and shopped for cilantro. But conflicting schedules and a real estate deal gone bad took its toll on the twenty-somethings in love. One divorce later, the hand-me-down chairs were separated, the potato masher custody settled, and Keeper moved to Providence to work with his best friend selling antiques at a quirky shop called Love and Death.

A new job, a new love, and a new life now in place, Keeper is in a comfortable situation. Business is steady, Leah (the new love) is intriguing and passionate, and Keeper’s friends always turn up for Sunday evening Card Night.

But one phone call from his former mother-in-law changes everything. And so days later, Keeper comes away with a son he never knew he had, and life all of a sudden takes on a new meaning.

Leo, the precocious three-year-old who sports Keeper’s square chin, is more than a handful—he eats only round foods, refuses to bathe, thinks he’s a bear, and refers to Leah as ‘that man.’ For a guy who never thought he’d be a parent, Keeper is thrown headfirst into fatherhood—and has no idea what to do. As Keeper and Leo adjust to the shock of each other and their suddenly very different lives, Keeper begins to let the people in his life in, in turns strange and heartwarming, funny and painful. But some, like Leah, aren’t so eager for change.

In this humorous and poignant novel, Edward Hardy explores the depths of modern love, parenthood, and compromise. Keeper and Kid is the story of how a normal guy receives an unexpected gift and in turn must learn to ask more of others and himself. A coming-of-age story for the guy who thought he had already grown up, Keeper and Kid is a sharp and witty account of what we do for love.

I’m always a bit hesitant to say yes when I get an email from an author, asking if I’d like to review his book. Forget Google alerts. It’s pretty much a given in this situation that they’re going to read my review (and hope that those who read my blog will go out and buy their book), so I want to be fair, yet I also don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings with negative comments. Edward Hardy need not worry. Keeper and Kid is a wonderful book. Anyone who’s raised a child (or taken care of a toddler for any length of time) will appreciate the humor in this story. Reading the book outside on our deck, I found myself laughing out loud so many times, I began to worry the neighbors would wonder what was really in my coffee mug!

I’m not sure how I missed this book; the cover is bright and cheery and one that would normally entice me to give it more than a passing glance. Yet, I don’t even remember seeing it in the store! This will definitely go on my list of books to use on my summer picks display at work next month. (This month’s end cap is set with my favorite coming of age books.)

My daughter is in her twenties and it’s been over a year since I was “nanny” to my two nieces, but I still remember the joys and frustrations of taking care of a three-year-old. Vividly! You know. A three-year-old who knows exactly how she likes her sandwich cut (with the crusts cut off and sliced on a diagonal. But not if it’s a tuna sandwich! Then you leave the crusts on and cut it in quarters. Duh!), or why she has to wear her tutu with her snow boots at nap time, or why she simply must get in the car on the right hand side and heaven forbid, NOT the left side. Three-year-olds can be quite stubborn particular. I’ve glanced through the book, checking out all the passages I marked with Post-It flags. There are quite a few, but they only make sense in the context of several paragraphs. You’ll just have to trust me on this. Keeper and Kid is one funny, moving book.

My only quibble is that I found the romantic drama between Keeper and Leah a bit tedious. Quite frankly, I would’ve liked to have read more about Leo’s antics and the hilarious dialogue between Keeper and Leo and a little bit less about Keeper’s self-pity and juvenile attempts to win back Leah. But never once did I feel like tossing the book against the wall or calling it quits. Of course, now I’m anxious to check out Hardy’s debut novel (Geyser Life). That one slipped under my radar, too!

I guess it’s lucky for me that I missed Keeper and Kid when it first came out. Now I own a signed first edition. Thanks, Edward. You’ve got a keeper!