Category Archives: Book Reviews

Friday Book Whimsey: Top Five for 2019

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In 2019, I read 84 books out of my 100-book yearly goal. I feel like I read a LOT, so perhaps my goal is too high. Nevertheless, I’m going to keep challenging myself.

Out of the 84 books I read, I would like to present my five favorite books. They weren’t all necessarily published in 2019, but I read them all this past year.

So, in no particular order….

1. Watching You, by Lisa Jewell
Tom Fitzwilliams is hired by schools in trouble. He is handsome and charismatic. There is a murder, and there are many folks who could be the killer, including Fitzwilliams. The author provides readers clues a little at a time, keeping us all guessing. Jewell is one of my favorite authors.

2. November Road, by Lou Berney
Maybe I liked this book so much because I am so familiar with the time period that this took place, right around the time of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Mobster Frank Guidry realizes that he inadvertently played a part in the assassination, and knows the mob will be coming to get him to keep him quiet. At the same time, housewife Charlotte leaves her husband taking her children, heading for L.A. The two meet, and despite the fact that Guidry initially only is interested in them as a cover, he finds real happiness, at least for a time.

3. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
Kya is abandoned by her family when she is 6 years old, and is left to take care for herself in the marshes of the southern Carolinas. As she faces the obstacles of life, she learns what is important and what isn’t. The story involves a delicious mystery as well.

4. The Chelsea Girls, by Fiona Davis
All of the author’s books to date have involved well-known places in New York City that add to her stories. The Chelsea girls takes place in the 1950s during the McCarthy period. The characters, who live in the historic Chelsea Hoel, represent several sides of the issue, and I not only found the book highly entertaining, but I learned a lot from reading it. Win-win.

5. Evvie Drake Starts Over, by Linda Holmes
I loved this book. It might have been my favorite of 2019. Evvie is literally packing up her car to leave her abusive husband when she learns that he has had a massive heart attack which eventually kills him. Evvie feels so guilty and distraught that she can scarcely get on with her life. She meets a professional baseball pitcher who has suddenly and inexplicably tanked. The two fall in love, and save one another.

Happy reading in 2020.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Cutting Season

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Caren Gray grew up on Belle Vie, the Louisiana plantation where her mother worked as a cook and her great great great grandfather was a slave. The home has been in the Clancy family since the days when they owned slaves. Now she lives there with her young daughter, a single mother who manages the antebellum home which is now an historic venue.

One night a young Mexican woman who works cutting sugar cane for the Groveland Corporation next to Belle Vie is found with her throat slit. There is no apparent reason, and blame is quickly placed on one of the Belle Vie workers who is putting together a film documenting a murder that took place during the days of slavery. Caren is caught in the middle as it appears that her 9-year-old daughter might be a witness.

I have never read anything by the author, Attica Locke, but The Cutting Season won’t be the last novel of hers that I will read. She tells a good story, and I rather wish that Caren Gray would be an ongoing character, as I found her to be multidimensional and intensely interesting. I can’t imagine working someplace that had once owned my ancestor as a slave.

There were twists and turns in the storyline, and the ending was quite unexpected. I liked the joining of a mystery with a book with historical background.

This is the author’s second book, and I look forward to reading more.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Family Upstairs

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It isn’t often that I can say that I simply can’t put a book down. I read The Family Upstairs, by Lisa Jewell, in bed until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I read the next day as a Lyft driver took me downtown. And I read on my way home as well. I had to know — HAD TO KNOW — what happens to this oh-so-complicated-and-disturbed family.

Libby Jones finally receives the letter she knew would be coming when she turned 25. She rips it open and learns that her birth mother and father who had died years before in an apparent suicide pact left her their mansion in the Chelsea neighborhood of London that is worth millions of dollars.

She had a brother and sister, who vanished after their parents’ death. Libby, then only an infant, was found happily playing in her crib. What happened to her siblings and why did her parents commit suicide?

Meanwhile, while Libby is digesting her newfound wealth, Lucy is barely surviving, trying to provide food and shelter for her two children. She hasn’t forgotten that  the baby is 25, a reminder she sees every day in her diary.

And then there’s Henry, Lucy’s brother. Is he still alive?

I love author Lisa Jewell. Her novels never fail to keep me glued to the stories, which always take unexpected twists and turns. The Family Upstairs is dark, even for this author who takes the reader places you will have bad dreams about that night. Some of the twists didn’t surprise me, but others caught me off guard. Jewell’s characters are always interesting and often have dark sides. Libby and Lucy and Henry and Phin were no exception.

I really enjoyed The Family Upstairs, and give it a big thumbs up.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Turn of the Key

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Author Ruth Ware specializes in thriller novels with twists and turns, generally with protagonists who are troubled and often with questionable pasts. I will admit to always looking forward to her next novel, and I will also admit to almost always wondering why I was so eager to read the book when it often leaves me troubled or dissatisfied by either the characters or the ending, or both.

Unfortunately, The Turn of the Key, Ware’s latest thriller, left me feeling the same as I felt with the others. Unfulfilled and somewhat disappointed.

Rowan Caine stumbles across a help wanted ad that seems too good to be true. She has been working for terrible pay at a daycare center, and would like to make more money and be more fulfilled. Here is an advertisement for a job that not only pays well, but meets all of her other needs — some independence, darling children, an extremely nice employer. She applies for the job and is quickly hired.

That, of course, is when all hell breaks loose. The children’s father almost immediately makes a pass at her. The mother seems too good to be true. The caretaker is tall, dark and handsome. Before long, one of the children is dead, and the nanny is the prime suspect. She knows she didn’t do it, but who did?

The author must have a fascination with houses. The house in her novel In a Dark, Dark Wood was made entirely of glass, which added to the creepiness of the wooded setting. In The Turn of the Key, the house is “smart,” operating using technology.Though the creepiness of being watched by cameras and operating all of the systems using voice or touch technology could have — should have — contributed to the creepiness of the book, it missed its mark. As did the references to spiritual activity, which were just silly.

I will admit that the twist towards the end of the book caught me by surprise, but by that time I had lost interest in all of the characters. The ending was completely unsatisfying.

I can’t recommend this novel, despite the potential it offered.

Here is a link to the book.

 

Friday Book Whimsy: A Well Behaved Woman

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One of the things I always have to remind myself when I read historical novels is that, given that they are novels, the perspective depends on the whims of the author. I’ve read books — both novels and nonfiction — in which New York City socialite Alva Vanderbilt is presented in a somewhat unfavorable light. A Well Behaved Woman, by Therese Anne Fowler, takes a different angle.

The wife of C.J. Vanderbilt, whose father made a fortune as a railroad magnate, Alva Vanderbilt helped bring the Vanderbilt family into the upper echelons of 19th Century New York City society alongside the Astors. How and why she did this is in the eyes of the beholder.

Her family had been well respected in the south, but her father lost all of his money in the Civil War. They were destitute. In this novel, Alva used her beauty and brains to win over C.J. Vanderbilt, who made no bones about the fact that he was marrying her because he felt she could use those same attributes to help his family be accepted by the New York City old money families.

She is utterly successful in this task, hosting elaborate balls, building several homes in New York City and Newport, RI (where the wealthy spent summers in their “cabins”). She had everything but the true love of her husband. Instead, she yearned to be with the man who eventually became her second husband following a scandalous divorce, something not ever done before in her social circles.

She went on to see her daughter marry into a British royal family, and was active in the women’s suffrage movement.

Whether Alva Vanderbilt Belmont was a strong and brave woman or simply an ambitious money-seeker, or someone in between, there is no question she left her mark on New York City.

Here is a link to the book.

 

Friday Book Whimsy: The Floating Feldmans

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I admit to not hesitating to pick out a book because of the title or the cover. So The Floating Feldmans by Elyssa Fiedland caught my attention on both accounts. I mean, really? The Floating Feldmans? Who couldn’t want to read a book with that title?

The Feldmans aren’t close. They haven’t gathered all together for over 10 years. Annette Feldman is celebrating her 70th birthday, and she thinks it’s high time they do. She and her husband David invite them all — their daughter Elise and her husband Mitch and their teenaged son and daughter, and their son Freddie and his girlfriend Natasha — on a Caribbean cruise.

However, it seems that each of them has a secret. David has a serious illness and they haven’t told their kids. Mitch has quit his job without telling his wife. His wife, on the other hand, has developed a serious shopping addiction. And how on earth is Freddie, who failed at nearly everything he’s ever done, able to afford a suite on the ship for he and his gorgeous girlfriend?

I will admit to having a bit of a hard time getting into the book. The characters seemed so angry and unlikable, and their snarkiness towards each other got on my last nerve. It was only the clever dialogue and the descriptions of the cruise ship that kept me going.

I was glad I did, because they all redeemed themselves in the end, and parts of the book made me laugh out loud. Since my husband and I like cruising, I could definitely relate to their cruising experience.

The Floating Feldmans was worth my reading time.

Here is a link to the book.

 

 

 

Friday Book Whimsy: One Thousand White Women

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According to a footnote from Jim Fergus, the author of One Thousand White Women, during the presidential term of Ulysses S. Grant, consideration of a program by which white women would volunteer to wed members of Indian tribes as a way of assimilating the Indian people into white culture was actually considered. Considered and, not surprisingly, dismissed.  One Thousand White Women is the story of what might have happened had the program actually taken place.

May Dodd, the feisty daughter of well-to-do parents in the mid-1800s, left home to live with (but not marry) a man of lesser means. The unmarried couple have two children before May is sent by her parents to an institution for the mentally insane. Her diagnosis? Promiscuity.

She is all but kept as a prisoner, understandably unhappy to be confined and without her children, and there is little-to-no chance of ever seeing the light of day again. So when she learns about a new program being offered by the U.S. government that allows women to volunteer to marry Cheyenne Indian men and have their children, she is eager to join. It is her only hope of getting out of the institution.

What follows is a story about the female friendships, about attitudes of whites for Indians and Indians for whites, about the settlement of the Old West, and an eye-opening look at the treatment of the Indians at the hands of the U.S. government.

I thought the author’s use of May’s journal to tell her story was interesting, and found the writing to be compelling. It was a clever way to provide a peek at the life of Native Americans as they were being pushed out of their own lands. May Dodd’s loyalty and commitment to doing good made her a likable character. While her independence struck me as quite unrealistic in 1875, I hope that even in those days, a few women were able to stand up for themselves and fight for the rest of them.

I’m not sure the idea would ever have worked in real life, which is why it was never carried out. It made for a good story, however.

Here is a link to the book. 

Friday Book Whimsy: September

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Once in a while, I’m in the mood for a tome. A real multigenerational novel that has surprises and family drama and things that work out in the end. And, it takes many luxurious reading hours to get to the end. I am especially fond of an epic novel if the writing is good.

 And it is no surprise that the writing in September, by Rosamunde Pilcher, is better than good. Her writing is extremely readable, her stories are complex and interesting, and her characters are likeable. She was one of my mom’s favorite authors, and if she was good enough for my mommy, she’s certainly good enough for me.

The story revolves around a ball/party that one of the characters decides to throw in honor of her daughter in September. There hasn’t been such a gala in many years, and the event brings home unexpected people. Violet Aird has been an important person in many people’s lives, and much of the story revolves around her. Her granddaughter Alexa is one of the unexpected people who is coming, and bringing her new boyfriend.

But the story mostly revolves around Pandora, who left the village years and years ago and never returned. Now, she is returning for this party. While happy she is coming, everyone wonders what is causing her to make an appearance after so long.

Well, you have to wait until the end of the novel to find out.

My favorite novel by this author is The Shell Seekers, so it was fun that there was a connection from that book to this book. The main character in The Shell Seekers was the grandmother of one of Alexa’s boyfriend’s grandmother. This story takes place in Scotland, always a good locale for an epic novel.

I read the book in the fall, and that added to the fun, given the novel’s title.

I recommend the book, and many of Pilcher’s (who passed away in February of this year) books.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Cold Way Home

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The Cold Way Home is author Julia Keller’s 8th book in the Bell Elkins mystery series. Keller’s wonderful novels appear to be a well-kept secret. And it’s a secret that should be let out to the masses, or at least the masses who like mystery drama, because Keller is a wonderful writer.

The books are somewhat dark, if realistic. They take place in the small town of Ackers Gap in the mountains of West Virginia. The troubles we hear about regularly on the evening news have been taking their toll on this community. Opioid and heroin addiction is claiming many of the young people who still live in this almost-ghost-town. The coal mines have shut down, and there are few jobs left for the people of the town. I have followed Bell from the beginning, when she was the district attorney. As the novels went on, more and more secrets from her past were revealed. Now she is no longer the district attorney, but has started an investigative business with her friend and former sheriff Nick Fogelsong, and a former deputy assistant who is now a paraplegic from a drug-related shooting.

Their first case is a doozy. A woman is found dead at a long-abandoned mental hospital located out in the middle of nowhere. The mental hospital was rumored to have used experimental (and horrific) medical practices during its time of operation. The woman was killed with a hatchet and no one knows why she was killed, or even why she was at that particular spot.  I will admit that the murderer’s identify was about as unexpected to this reader as in any mystery novels I’ve read. I literally gasped out loud when I learned the truth.

Keller’s writing is exceptional. Her descriptions are so clear and eloquent that you can hear the trees as they blow and feel the cold in the air. The story is told from all three of the private investigators, and the three couldn’t be more unique. The author weaves their personal stories into the novel, making us feel almost like they are our friends too.

I love this mystery series, and have recommended it to many. The Cold Way Home is no exception.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: Evvie Drake Starts Over

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Sometimes it feels good to read a book that makes you smile, not only as you’re reading it, but after you put the book down. Evvie Drake Starts Over was a book that left me smiling long after I closed the book. Well, shut off my Kindle. Author Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for National Public Radio, and has a good handle on everyday normal people. People like Evvie Drake.

Eveleth Drake gets the call from the hospital that everyone dreads: her husband has been killed in a car accident. The thing is, Evvie had been busy loading up her car with her personal items intending to leave her husband before he arrived home that evening. Her husband Tim is the highly respected doctor in the small Maine coastal town in which they both have lived their entire lives.

But Evvie’s secret — the thing no one else knows — is that Tim was not a good husband. He belittled Evvie at every opportunity. He blamed her for any thing that goes wrong. He was emotionally abusive at every turn and it was getting worse. And she had had enough. But her inability to reconcile the fact that he died at the same time that she was getting ready to escape leaves her ashamed and unable to move ahead with her life, even as the months go by.

At the same time, far away in New York City, Yankees star pitcher Dean Tenney has what professional athletes call the yips. He can no longer throw a straight pitch. He has tried everything to no avail.

The two have little in common except for a mutual friend Andy. Andy has been Evvie’s confidant about everything since Tim’s death except the truth about her husband. And Andy has been Dean’s best friend since childhood. He recognizes that Dean needs to get away from New York City, and suggests that he rent a home in Evvie’s oversized house.

The two agree to sharing a home, provided neither asks questions of the other. That works until they become friends, and then their friendship begins to blossom into something more.

Evvie Drake Starts Over is a story of friendship, love, and the importance of learning who you really are and how much you are able to withstand and still survive. Blossom, in fact.

I loved the dialogue in this book, and I was left wishing that I could be best friends with all of the characters. I really enjoyed the story of Evvie Drake.

Here is a link to the book.