The Home Child by Liz Berry

 

In 1889, a law was passed in England that allowed the transfer of orphaned children to Canada as indentured servants.   Most were between the ages of seven and fourteen but some were as young as toddlers.  They were called home children.  In this beautiful book, Liz Berry tells the story of one such child, Eliza Stowell.  

Eliza is sent to a farmer's house whose wife is bed bound with illness.  She does all the cleaning and cooking, laundry, feeding of livestock and tends to the lady of the house.  She works from before dawn until there is no more light, only to fall into her bed and sleep, exhausted, until the next day.  It is a hard life where Eliza has nothing to call her own.  The family even changes her name to Lizzie.

Then a boy arrives, another indentured servant, another home child.  He is a few years older than Eliza and they form at first a friendship, then a love.  His are the only tender looks and touches Eliza ever gets but they are discovered and her love is sent away.

Liz Berry is a prize-winning poet and she has told this story in verse.  The poems tell of the voyage over, the longing for Eliza's mother and brothers, her loneliness and her joy in finding a love.  It tells the story of the home children, a program that sent over one hundred thousand children to another country.  It is estimated that ten percent of Canada's population are descendants of those who were forcibly emigrated.  The poems are written with use of dialect and they bring Eliza to life in a way that few characters are drawn.  Eliza is based on Liz Berry's great aunt, Eliza, who was a participant in the story and lost to the family that remained behind.  This gorgeous book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

 

Ryan Summers and Evie Porter are a typical couple.  They are young, professional and living in Ryan's hometown, in fact in his family home.  The relationship isn't long, in fact only a few months long, but it looks like it's headed for marriage.

There's just one problem.  Evie Porter isn't Evie Porter.  She's a con artist, working for a shadowy figure, taking whatever assignment he gives her.  Sometimes it's stealing something priceless, sometimes getting information and sometimes setting someone up for blackmail.  She has come to the town to get information and her mark is Ryan himself.  Ryan has a legitimate business that takes most of his time but his family business is also one of the biggest middlemen in stolen goods in the South.  

As Evie attempts to finish her assignment, troubles start to crop up.  Mr. Smith, her boss, has sent another operative to town to let her know that she isn't producing as fast as he wants and the other operative is going by Evie's real name.  As tensions mount and bodies start to accumulate, it's unclear if Evie will be able to finish this assignment or if it will be the end of her.

This is my first book by Ashley Elston.  She has been writing in the young adult genre and this is her first adult book.  The plot is intricately woven and the pacing is fast.  The book alternates between this assignment and past assignments of Evie's that fill in her backstory.  The ending is exceptionally well done and Elston has created a book that hopefully will keep her in the mystery genre.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Standing In The Shadows by Peter Robinson

 

Inspector Alan Banks and his team are working two cases.  The first is a skeleton that was found by an archeologist who was digging for Roman ruins but found something much more recent.  The body is that of a man in his late fifties to mid sixties with no identification but evidence of expensive clothes, buried probably five to ten years.  The other case is a college woman who died forty years before back in the time and location of the Yorkshire Ripper.  Due to all the activity of that case, the death of Alice went unsolved and listening to her friends, barely investigated.

The team is the same characters but a new detective has been assigned.  He is a young man, eager to learn and probably to be fast tracked for promotion.  Winsome has just returned after having a baby and Gerry is rapidly becoming one of the main individuals that Banks looks to.  DCI Annie Cabbot is on leave after the death of her father so she can close out his estate.  When it starts to look like the cases may be related, it throws everyone for a loop.  Can they solve both cases?

This is the last DCI Alan Banks' book in the series, number twenty-eight.  What a wonderful 2024 I had, going back and reading all the books in this series.  The reader gets an inside look into Banks's life throughout the years as he just comes to Eastdale, through the years of his marriage and children at home, to his aging but refusal to retire.  I'm not sure if there would have been more, as Robinson has introduced a new character in the young detective and the other characters's stories are ongoing.  This is a marvelous series and the reader couldn't do much better in police procedural mysteries than this work.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

 

Charlotte Holladay comes from an old respected Virginia family and a milltown where the mill was owned by Holladays and the main street was Holladay Avenue.  But Charlotte never fit that mold.  After her husband deserted her and her daughter, she went through a wild spell and gained another daughter.  But the gossip and narrow mindedness of the townspeople was crushing her spirit so she took her girls and left.  

Unfortunately, she wasn't exactly mother material.  When she disappeared for more than three weeks with no word, her girls, Liz and Bean, decided something had to be done and climbed on the Greyhound bus to visit their uncle Tinsley.  Tinsley wasn't doing that well himself.  He had been forced out of his mill by new owners and a bully they brought in named Maddox.  Maddox cut salaries, cut out longstanding benefits like the Christmas ham and baseball team and made everyone's life miserable.  Tinsley was left with a huge mansion and no money coming in.  When the girls arrived he was living off eggs and venison stew but he welcomed the girls in regardless.

The girls liked the town their mother despised.  Bean found new family with her father's relatives and learned about the man her mother refused to tell her about.  They did well at school and learned to love Uncle Tinsley.  But Maddox wasn't through with the Holladay family and he committed a crime against the girls that could not be ignored although it would divide the town.

Jeannette Wells is known best for her memoir, The Glass Castle, which outlined the story of her own unusual family and which was made into a movie.  This novel shares elements of that memoir with adults who are unwilling to live up to their responsibilities as parents and children who are forced to grow up well before their time.  Readers will fall in love with Bean's spirit and empathize with Liz and her troubles.  This book is recommended for literary and women's fiction.    

The Grief Of Stones by Katherine Addison

 

Katherine Addison takes her readers back into the world that was introduced in The Goblin Emperor.  It is part of the four part series called The Chronicles Of Osreth and focuses on the character of Thara Celehar.  Readers first met Celehar when he uncovered the truth about the bombs that killed the goblin emperor's father and brothers.  He is a provost and a witness for the dead.

Thara has been moved to a small town called Amalo where he would work with the commoners of the kingdom, which is his preference.  A witness for the dead can speak with the dead by laying hands on their bodies.  He or she can solve murders this way, determine how someone wanted their property left in the case of no wills and other things.  He has also been charged with training a woman who has uncovered her talent for death talking as well.

Thara has several cases in this novel.  He solves several murders, uncovers a child abuse ring and helps discover an ancient tomb with treasure that belongs to the kingdom.  He also fights a being guarding the treasure and is the victor but at the loss of his powers.  What comes next?

Katherine Addison is the pen name of Sarah Monette.  She writes mostly in the genre of fantasy and sometimes co-authors with other fantasy writers.  In this series, she has created a fascinating character in Thara who is gentle and honest and who only wants to help others.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did an excellent job of bringing the character to life as he solved the big and little mysteries that make up his daily work.  This was the second book in the trilogy and the next will be published in March of 2025.  I know I'll be ready to revisit Thara and his world then.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.  

Booksie's 2024 Wrapup, January 1, 2025

It's hard to believe but it's now 2025!  I was on Bluesky last night and there were lots of posts about the Y2K event.  As an IT person, I was very involved in that and remember it vividly.  It all turned out fine and I'm expecting a great 2025 as well.  It's a time of checking goals and setting new ones.  Here's how I did on last year's goals:

1.  Read 300 books.  I didn't make it but I got close.  I read 273 books.

2.  Read a classic.  I read Middlemarch so this one was done.

3.  Read the Peter Robinson Inspector Alan Banks series.  I'm on #28, the last one.

4.  Read from my shelves and give away what I've read.  This one is a big yes.

5.  Finish four challenges.  Done.

Here are my favorites for 2024 in no particular order:

1. The Five by Hallie Ruebenhold
2. Beartown by Fredrick Backman
3. Exordia by Seth Dickinson
4. Gould's Book Of Fish by Richard Flanagan
5. All The Light We Couldn't See by Anthony Doerr
6. The Hunter by Tana French
7. The Gameshouse by Clair North
8. The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden
9. The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
10. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
11. The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
12. The Garden Of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
13. Mothers Of Sparta by Dawn Davies
14. American Dirt by Jeannine Cummins
15. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Finally, here are my goals for 2025:

1. Read 300 books.  I'm going to make this one sometime!
2. Read from my own shelves and give away what I read.
3. Read all books from my four book clubs.
4. Finish the 52 Book Challenge for 2025 and four challenges with the Book Girls.
5. Read two classics.
6. Read the nineteen books in the Mark Billingham Tom Thorne series.
7. Read the three books in the Tamsyn Muir Gideon The Ninth series.
8. Read the three books in the Anthony Ryan The Covenant Of Steel series.
9. Read the seven books in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King
10. Read a series by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

As always, Happy Reading!

Not Dark Yet by Peter Robinson

 

DCI Alan Banks isn't sure that Zelda is telling him the truth.  She is the partner of one of his team's father, Ray Cabbot, an artist.  Zelda had been kidnapped as an eighteen-year-old overseas and forced into sex slavery.  She had eventually managed to escape and came to England.  She has been helping the government identify those involved in the human trafficking business and in that process, managed to identify the man who tried to burn Banks alive a decade ago.  But Banks isn't sure she is telling him everything.

Meanwhile, the team is working a double murder.  A rich property developer and his manservant were found brutally killed.  He was known for his elaborate, risque parties with wealthy and celebrity guests, parties rife with drugs and available women.  He had also recently formed ties with some Albanian crime lords so they could be the culprits.  But when the house was searched, a trove of recorded encounters were found and one encounter seems to be a rape rather than an agreed upon tryst.  Could that woman have come back for revenge?

As the cases are worked, both Zelda and Banks are kidnapped and barely escape with their lives.  Will this escalation break the cases wide open?

This is the twenty-seventh Alan Banks mystery.  There is only one more which I'm starting now.  I'll miss the team and Robinson's intricate yet revealing prose that solves the cases.  This book is recommended for mystery fans.

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult

 

Diana O'Toole and her partner Finn are up and coming professionals.  Finn is a resident in surgery and Diana is working at Sotheby's in the art auction business.  Diana is the daughter of a groundbreaking photographer whose work has been featured at MOMA but who spent more time on her career than being a mother.  Still, Diana at almost thirty is right on track on her life plan.  She and Finn are about to take the trip of a lifetime to the Galapagos islands and she's pretty sure that Finn plans to propose there.

Then it hits.  Covid comes to the United States and New York City is especially hard hit.  Finn works with an overwhelming number of patients, most of whom do not survive their hospitalization.  Although he takes every precaution, he is worried about bringing the virus home to their apartment.  Diana and the rest of her peers are furloughed with no income.  Finn suggests that Diana go without him on their trip, as she should be safe there.  Diana reluctantly agrees.

When she arrives, it is to find the island closed.  Her hotel isn't open and neither are restaurants.  She has no Internet service.  She manages to find a place to stay when she meets a grandmotherly woman who takes her in under her wing.  She becomes friends with the woman's granddaughter who is hiding several secrets about her life.  She also meets the son who is an attractive tour guide and farmer who she can't help but grow close to.  Will her relationship with Finn survive this isolation and separation?

Jodi Picoult is known for her women's fiction books, most of which center around an ethical decision.  Diana learns much about herself during this time period, lessons which the reader may feel can be applied to their own life.  The characters are finely drawn and the reader is engaged in Diana's life and situation.  This book is recommended for readers of women's and literary fiction. 

Poverty By America by Matthew Desmond

 

Matthew Desmond believes that we as a society have made the decision to keep a subset of the population poor.  He believes that we do this in three ways.  The first is exploiting them.  We limit their choices to bad schools, to only living in certain neighborhoods.  They pay more for financial services and are victims to financial businesses like payday loans.  Low wages give us cheap consumer goods and we are not ready to give those up.

Second is the various mechanisms that support housing segregation.  Zoning laws prohibit the construction of affordable housing except in certain locations.  Banks are not interested in making loans to build such housing or in providing funds for smaller mortgages.  This has the effect of making the poor spend more of their time in stressful situations, fighting crime and things like lead poisoning found in substandard housing.  It also has the effect of setting the children of poor parents up for their own poverty as they attend schools that don't have the resources or habits of good education.

Third society chooses to give more resources to those with money than to those without.  Policies such as mortgage deductions, lower taxing of capital gains and other policies push more resources to those with money, allowing them to keep more of their money.  The tax rates are lower than they have been in some time.  

Matthew Desmond is a social scientist who focuses his work on poverty and how to alleviate it.  He heads up a department at Princeton that develops theories and strategies to combat poverty.  He has written over fifty published articles and his 2016 book Evited was named a best book by many outlets.  This book is an eye-opener for readers and gives them another way to examine their own beliefs and choices in regards to poverty.  This book is recommended to nonfiction readers.  

Headhunters On My Doorstep by J. Maarten Troost

 

J. Maarten Troost made his name writing humorous travel books, the first being on a remote island where his wife took a job for a humanitarian agency.  Since that book, he has written several others, all with a breezy style and irrelevant take on the people and places he encountered.  This book was written about a year after Troost realized that he was an alcoholic and much of the book is centered on this discovery and his rehabilitation and recovery.

He returns to the islands he lived on and follows in the steps of others such as Robert Louis Stevenson, the artist Toulouse Lautrec and others.  Better known locations he visits include Tahiti, Fiji and Samoa.  But he also visits less known places such as the Marquesas, the Tuamotus and Kiribati.  Wherever he can he travels by himself, seeking out remote visas that the average tourist will never see and forming relationships with the native populations he encounters.

A Dutch author, Troost wrote several best selling books and travel articles that appeared in publications such as the Atlantic and the Washington Post.  Those readers who enjoyed his past books will enjoy this one as well as his breezy style wears well.  But others will be turned off by the large portion of the book devoted to his alcoholism and recovery.  This is a more mature Troost, who doesn't have the live and let live feeling about various individuals such as Gauguin who could be considered a pedophile, or parents that let their children run free to encounter danger.  This is a married man with children and his maturity has affected his writing in what I consider a positive way.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers who enjoy travel writing.  

Perfume River by Robert Olen Butler

 

We meet Robert Quinlan and his wife Darla right after he meets a Vietnam War veteran, Bob, one night at a local restaurant and buys him supper.  It brings memories back to Robert who met his wife after she marched in an antiwar rally when he had just returned from Vietnam.  He served near the Perfume River and he still has many secrets he has never told anyone.  The woman he loved there.  What he did the night of Tet offensive.  

Robert went to try to please his father.  The war tore his family apart.  His younger brother Jimmy went to Canada to avoid the draft and never returned.  He is still there, still with the woman who went there with him.  The brothers were also torn apart, neither approving of the other's choices.  The family hasn't seen or spoken with Jimmy in decades.  

Now things come to a head.  Robert's father falls and breaks his hip and at age eighty-nine, the prognosis isn't good.  The family reaches out to Jimmy but he remains aloof.  Bob, the homeless veteran, is attacked when seeking shelter and it takes him back to his days of service.  The three men will come together in an explosive moment that echoes the violence that the war perpetrated on everything and everyone.

Robert Olen Butler is a distinguished author who has won the Pulitzer Prize along with many other honors.  Like his protagonist in this novel, he teaches at Florida State.  This novel explores the impact that the Vietnam War had on families and individuals and how war resonates down through the years, sometimes separating those who served and often damaging them in ways that one never recovers from.  The writing is spare yet draws the reader in and for those who lived through the Vietnam War, reminiscent of those times in ways both good and bad.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Middle Of The Night by Riley Sager

 

Thirty years ago, Ethan Marsh and his best friend, Billy, camped out in his backyard as they did every Friday night.  But when Ethan woke up the next morning, things would never be the same.  There was a cut in the tent and Billy was gone.  Despite an intensive police investigation by local police and the FBI, the case was never solved and Billy was never found.  Ethan's life changed that night and he is still somehow in that tent.

Now forty, Ethan has come home.  His parents have moved south and Ethan is staying in his childhood home getting it ready for sale.  He is now a teacher but the disappearance of Billy has affected his whole life, making him hesitant about new things and afraid to live his life completely, sure that people still think he was involved somehow.  The same neighbors are still living in his six house development and reminders of Billy are everywhere.  Then Ethan starts to feel Billy's presence.  A few days later, Billy's body is finally found.  Has he come back so that Ethan will finally solve the mystery?

Riley Sager has written a haunting tale that seems possible.  Ethan now interacts with the grown up versions of the children he grew up with; his former babysitter, now back home looking after an ailing father and with a son of her own; the neighborhood bully who is now a police officer in charge of the cold case, another friend who now owns a sporting goods store and lives with his wife, child and soon to be second child.  Even the adults are still there for the most part.  Overhanding everything is the existence of a forbidden research institute which is about a mile away in the woods and where no one was ever allowed to enter.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore

 

Philip and Isabel Carey are newlyweds.  They have come to a small English village where Philip is taking up a post as a new doctor.  They don't have money yet for a house so they move into an apartment in town.  Isabel isn't happy there.  The landlady lives updoors and Isabel is sure she is spying on them.  She feels the women in town are judging her and she feels isolated and lonely.  Although the war has been over for a while, there is still rationing making the job of a new cook even harder.  She takes long walks, often out to the deserted airfield where pilots were stationed during the war.

The apartment is always cold.  One day while searching for another blanket to put on the bed, Isabel finds an airman's greatcoat pushed far back in a cupboard.  She takes it down and puts it on the bed for another blanket.  It's warm and somehow makes her feel safe.  

One night, while Philip is out on another call, she hears tapping at the window.  She goes there and sees a man standing there.  He puts his hand against the window and Isabel does the same.  Soon she has met him, a former pilot named Alec.  He talks about the missions he is going on and how it feels to fly against the enemy.  They start an affair although Isabel knows it can't be real.  The war is over and the airfield is deserted.  Yet Alec comes to her most days.  How can it be?  What's the connection?

Helen Dunmore was an English author and poet.  She wrote novels and short stories as well as poetry, both for adults and children.  One of her novels won the first Orange Prize now named the Women's Fiction Prize.  Her novels write about love and loss, often set in or around World War II.  There is often a supernatural element as in The Greatcoat.  Readers will be drawn into Isobel's lonely life and the slow reveal of a long past love affair is fascinating.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

Once A Liar by A.F. Brady

 

Peter Caine was determined to become a success.  He had grown up desperately poor in New England, the unwanted child taken in by his aunt and uncle who already had four of their own.  Luckily, Peter was bright and as soon as he could, he got away, changed his name and became a lawyer.  He ended up in New York and was taken under the wing of the best defense lawyer in the city.  He also married his daughter and had a child, a son.

But Peter is a sociopath and has no feelings for others.  It doesn't bother him to set free the worst of the worst, murderers and pedophiles.  It doesn't bother him to cheat on his wife or to ignore his son.  He uses people to achieve his goals, then drops them.  Eventually his wife divorces him.

Two things happen to change Peter's life.  His ex-wife dies and his son, now sixteen, comes to live with him and his new partner Claire.  In the same time period, his long time mistress, the daughter of Manhattan's D.A., is murdered and Peter is suspected.  Peter is a prime suspect and as he tries to extricate himself he starts to realize that his life is all wrong.  Is it too late to change it?

A.F. Brady is a thriller writer and a practicing psychotherapist.  The action and pace in this book are very fast as the reader moves through these fateful weeks with the principal character.  I had two issues with the character.  First, although described as charming there was little evidence of it, rather he came across as condescending and impatient.  Secondly, Caine was given every bad characteristic of someone who has his diagnosis and it starts to feel like overkill.  There is a big twist at the end that the reader won't see coming.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Flag, The Cross, And The Station Wagon by Bill McKibben

 

Bill McKibben grew up in a well to do suburb.  Everyone went to the same school and mothers were usually home when the kids came home from school.  Patriotism was high and everyone was sure that the United States was the best country in the world.  

Now, as an older man, he sees many changes.  It is increasingly difficult for a family to get by on one salary and many of the jobs are gone, sent overseas.  The ability to buy a starter home that would eventually turn into enough money to fund retirement is gone, along with most of the pensions that supplied stability.  The automatic patriotism is strained as the truth about those groups that were excluded is more transparent.  Church attendance is falling rapidly and is mostly composed of older people, escalating the dearth of those who identify as religious.

Along with these issues, McKibben believes there is hope.  He encourages municipalities and suburbs to encourage and support lower income housing.  He hopes that resources will increasingly go to those in need.  He wants the United States to once again feel as if they were a beacon of freedom throughout the world.  

McKibben is a scholar, an author and an environmentalist.  In this book, he outlines the issues he sees and then the improvements that he believes can occur.  I listened to this book and the narrator had a clear voice that made listening easy.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.  

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

 

Four children set off to see a fortune teller one of them had heard about.  Varya is the oldest, then Daniel, Klara and youngest child Simon.  When the children get to the fortune teller, she only tells people the date of their death.  The children agree to hear this and then leave scarred forever.  Those who are to leave early go to find their dreams, those who will live longer have to live with the guilt and loneliness of losing their family.

The children grow up and the rest of the book tells each child's story as they grow and make a life for themselves.  Simon becomes a dancer in San Francisco.  Klara becomes a magician and after she marries, has an act in Las Vegas.  Daniel is a doctor who makes the decision whether or not a soldier is fit to go to combat.  Varya becomes a scientist and works to find out how to extend human life.  

Chloe Benjamin has written a novel I won't soon forget.  Each of the children has a distinct personality and each a different dream.  The tension comes from each following their dreams and whether they will all learn the meaning of family.  I found the book fascinating and I'm glad I chose it to read.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction and family dramas.  

The Diva by Daisy Goodwin

 

They were the two most famous Greeks in the world.  Maria Callas was the leading opera singer.  Aristotle Onassis was one of the richest men in the world.  When they met, they were both married to other people but the passion they felt for each other could not be denied.  They spent the next decade together but it was not an easy relationship.

While Onassis loved Callas, he continued to have relationships with other women and then eventually married the former First Lady, Jackie Kennedy after having an affair with her sister, Lee Radziwill.  Maria had married a man who also was her manager for her early career but ended her marriage once she met Onassis.  In her divorce, he ended up with much of her money.

In this novel, Daisy Goodwin tells Maria's story, her recognition that a singer has a purse of golden coins which is the number of performances before the voice starts to change and go.  Maria lived for her music for much of her career but once she met Aristotle, she changed and started living for love.  The relationship broadened her emotional repertoire as she experience the emotions of love and jealousy that many of her opera roles portrayed.  

Daisy Goodwin has made a career of writing the stories of famous women.  Most are set in Victorian times and she also wrote the screenplay for the television series Victoria.  In this book, she has moved into more recent times and explored the life and loves of a woman who is not a ruler.  Callas was the reigning singer of her time but she never managed to marry the love of her life or have a good family relationship with her mother or sister.  Does greatness require pain?  This book is recommended for readers of women's fiction.   

Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro

 

The Victorian world is one of strict rules and class distinctions.  Then there is the world beneath, the world that isn't spoken of but which makes the other one possible.  That world is centered at the Institute.  It's stated purpose is to collect children with unusual talents and educate them to make their way in society.  The unstated purpose is to guard the gateway between the living and the dead.  

The children come from all over the world and have varying talents.  Charlie is an American who heals.  He has been a slave, imprisoned and executed but he is still here.  Ribs is a girl who can make herself invisible.  Oscar can make companions from meat so he is never alone.  Komako is a dustmaster and can collect and use dust to obscure or tighten around others.  Marlowe is the youngest.  He was found as a baby in a boxcare with a dying woman and then adopted into a circus.  He can glow blue and either rend or mend flesh.

But some talents get corrupted.  Jacob is one such.  He is also a dustmaster and the one who finds Komako in China.  But he gets involved with the other side when he attempts to visit there to find his dead twin and is changed forever.  Now he only wants to take down the Institute and take Marlowe with him.  He also wants to destroy the scientist who instead of helping the children wants to use them in his own battle against the Drucker, a creature of the dead.  Jacob came once and almost succeeded in capturing Marlowe as a baby.  Now that Marlowe is back, Jacob is ready to mount another attempt.

I listened to this novel and it will definitely be one of my favorite books of 2024.  I loved the Dickensian writing style and the slow unraveling of the plots and counterplots at the Institute.  The relationship between the children is fascinating and the way they complement each other's talents and their ability to form a united front is key.  I listened to this novel and I must mention the narrator, Ben Onwukwe.  His deep voice lends menace to the story and accentuates the slow unraveling of the climax of the book.  This book is highly recommended for fantasy readers.  

Midnight And Blue by Ian Rankin

 

John Rebus has finally fallen.  He is in prison, his actions in the death of Edinburgh's crime boss questioned and charged, and after a trial, found guilty.  Cops in prisons usually don't do well and at first he was in isolation.  But the man who runs things inside puts Rebus under his protection and he is moved to the general population.  He keeps to himself, is helpful where he can be, and does his time.  But things change when a man on the wing is found dead one morning, his throat slit.  Who could have done it at a time when everyone was locked in?  Was it a guard?  Did someone unlock the cell and let in an enemy?  

On the outside, Rebus's best friend, Siobhan Clarke, is busy with police work.  She has a missing teenage girl and is also involved in the prison case.  When an old nemesis Malcolm Fox shows up in the prison as well, Clarke asks to go full time on the missing teenager case and is given permission.  Fox used to work in what is called Professional Standards, charging his fellow officers when they strayed, and Rebus had been one of his major targets.  Clarke isn't sure what happened to the girl but as the days go by and she isn't found, projections aren't good.  When a man she worked for is found killed, Clarke has a bigger case and breaks a pedophile ring.  

This is the twenty-fifth book in the Rebus series.  It is rare that an author can keep a series fresh and involving but Ian Rankin has been able to do so with this one.  Rankin is a Scottish author and he knows the territory.  The writing is crisp and Rebus is the focus even brought down low.  The ending to both cases is unexpected and satisfying.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Rising by Heather Graham and Jon Land

 

Alex Chin is the high school's IT guy.  He's the star quarterback, the prom king, the most popular guy in the school who can date any girl he wants.  He's the blonde haired, blue eyed guy that girls fantasize over although his parents are Chinese.  They have told Alex that he was adopted as a baby and he's never really thought about how unusual that is, Chinese parents adopting a Caucasian child.

Sam is definitely not in the popular crowd.  She's a math/science geek and she lives for the goal of someday being an astronaut.  She has a prestigious internship at a government lab nearby and she's just noticed some irregularities she wants to share there.  Sam is Alex's tutor and although she knows that's all it will be, she has a crush on him.

When Alex gets a concussion on the field one Friday night, he is taken to the hospital.  While there, although his recovery is rapid, some strange results come back from his tests.  His parents are hesitant to talk about it and Alex can't get anything from the doctors.  When he goes to see his doctor, he is dead and when he returns home, the same is true of his parents.  There are policemen everywhere but they seem android like and they are.  For Alex has a secret that even he doesn't know he carries and it could affect the fate of the world.  He and Sam hit the road, running from those who would kill them both without asking any questions.  

Heather Graham has written over two hundred books across a wide variety of genres.  Jon Land writes technothrillers and increasingly, murder mysteries.  Their partnership in this book has generated a story that moves fast and initiates the question of the existence of aliens and why they would be interested in Earth and its inhabitants.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.  

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

 

Violet Sorrengail grew up believing that she would serve the kingdom as a scribe as her father had.  But her mother is a General and head of the Rider Academy and she forces Violet into the applicants for riders.  The Academy is where riders are chosen by their dragons for life and learn to ride and fight.  Violet is small and has an illness that makes her bones easy to snap and her muscles to part and strain.  She doesn't expect that she'll survive but she has to.  Her brother Brennan was a rider and he died in battle, tearing their family apart.  Her sister Mira is also a rider and in constant danger.  Another loss is unbearable.

Violet passes the first test and discovers both good and bad news.  The good news is that her best friend is her squad leader.  The bad news is that her wingleader is Xaden Riorson, the most ruthless leader in the force and a sworn enemy of her family.  His parents had been the leaders of a rebellion and all the adults in the rebellion had been executed as their children watched.  The children were bound to the rider academy.  There are a hundred ways an enemy as a leader could make sure Violet doesn't survive and the intense looks he gives her makes her sure that he is counting them.

To everyone's shock, Violet is chosen by the most powerful dragon in the force and then chosen again by another dragon.  No rider has ever done this and it marks her as someone to watch.  Violet constantly trains and makes adaptions to survive.  Her best friend becomes less of one as he constantly tries to shelter her and keep her weak in order to survive.  She needs someone to push her and to her shock she finds it in Xaden.  They are now tied together for life because their dragons are mates.  Violet hates to admit it but she starts having feelings for Xaden and she thinks he has the same for her.  Can they have a love in such an environment?

This book took the fantasy world by storm.  Before this, she was known as a romance writer and that shows through in the love scenes.  But she also has a lifelong love of the military and that is also obvious.  This is the start of a great fantasy series that has already been optioned for a tv series.  Violet is a wonderful character to serve as a model for young women and Xaden is every woman's dream.  This book is recommended for fantasy and romance readers.  

The Last Party by Clare Macintosh

 

When Rhys Lloyd is murdered the night of his New Year's party, there is no shortage of suspects.  Rhys had been a local Welsh boy who won a singing contest and made it big.  When his father died, his will gave Rhys his land and Rhys leveraged it into a high end development of vacation homes.  The local townspeople are not happy with that.  Rhys is also a bully and a philander.  He has cheated routinely on his wife and isn't above a little force if a woman or girl isn't willing.  

He's also a rogue in business.  He owes the local contractor for his work and his plans for a water sports center will put another out of business.  He lies to his partner about their financial position and spends company funds on his personal debts.  

Since the development is on the border between Wales and England, two police forces are assigned.  Leo is the English DI.  He is divorced and his ex wife is keeping his young son from him.  The Welsh police are represented by Ffion Morgan.  She grew up in the village and knows everyone there.  This case could uncover her biggest secret and she can't have that.

Clare Mackintosh is an English author whose mystery novels have been successful from the start.  This novel is the first in the Ffion Morgan series and its Welsh policewoman is a fiercely independent woman who has secrets of her own.  The lives and motives of all the characters are revealed with just the right speed and the solution to the murder is shocking when it is finally revealed.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.   

The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown

 

This is the story of the 1936 Olympics and the men who rowed for the United States and brought home the gold medal, putting another arrow in the puffed vanity of Adolph Hitler who had stage managed the entire event to make Germany look good to the world.  These were the nine men who crewed for Washington University during a time when the world was crawling out of the Great Depression.

Daniel Brown has done a masterful job of setting the stage for the climatic race which is the book's focus.  He gives the backstories of the coaches, the English man who came to America and revolutionized the construction of the racing shells.  Washington's greatest rival was the University of California and we hear about this rivalry and how the coaches tried to outdo each other.

But it is mainly the story of the men who rowed.  Chief among them is Joe Rantz who exemplified the stories of the others.  Joe grew up poor, his father unemployed due to the Depression.  His mother died young and when Joe's father remarried, his stepmother didn't care for him, especially once her own children came along.  At age eight, she forced his father to put him out.  Joe was given a spot on the schoolhouse floor to sleep but had to cut firewood and keep the building maintained.  In order to eat, he ate with the miners of the town but had to work in the kitchen.  But he persevered.  He was taken back home for a while, but when the family moved, Joe was once again left behind to make his own way, his stepbrothers and sisters torn away.  He learned to rely on no one, to make his own way in the world.  Unfortunately, that is the exact opposite of what is required in rowing where each man must subsume himself to the group effort.  Joe and the other men learned this lesson and were considered the best rowing team ever seen.

In Berlin, Hitler and his group organizers tried to fix the race.  There were six lanes in the race.  The three inside lanes were calm and easier to row in while the outside lanes were difficult, facing the winds and waves of the lake.  Germany was given the prize position of the first lane, their ally Italy the second and the Swiss third.  The two favorites coming into the race, Great Britain and the United States were given the outside lanes with the United States being assigned the worst lane.  The man who set the stroke for the boat was ill and had collapsed two days before.  But the crew managed to pull together and win the gold.

Daniel James Brown is an American author who specializes in writing nonfiction about historical events.  His research is meticulous and he gives enough background for the reader to emphasize with the subjects of the book without becoming overwhelming.  I read his book earlier about the Donner Party and years later still remember that harrowing event through his research.  Here, once again, he brings this event to life with vivid outlines of the lives of those involved while he sets the historical events of the world in place as the background.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.  

Close To Death by Anthony Horowitz

 

When Anthony Horowitz talks with his agent, she reminds him that he is due to turn in a book by Christmas.  He doesn't have anything in progress and his agent suggests that he write up one of Hawthorne's, the private detective he partners with, old cases when Hawthorne was working with his old partner who Horowitz has always been curious about.

Hawthorne, of course, hates the idea but gives in.  He dumps case files and recordings on Horowitz and leaves him to it.  The case took place in an upscale community called Riverside Close.  It has only a few houses so when the latest resident, Giles Kentworthy, is found dead the suspects are limited.  Kentworthy and his family had moved in a few months before and no one cared for him.  He blared his music, his kids were terrors and his parking blocked the other residents.  It was suspected he was a racist.  Worst of all, if anyone talked to him, he blew them off.

The suspects include two elderly women who had been nuns before coming to Riverside, a GP, a dentist, a retired barrister and a chess grandmaster.  Most of these had spouses although some had lost their mates as they are all getting older.  The superintendent in charge goes for the most likely suspect as there is another death with a locked room plot and it appears that this was the culprit.  Horowitz had come in and solved the murder but wasn't pleased with the result.

Anthony Horowitz is an English author who has been successful in several genres.  He is best known for his mysteries and has several series that are ongoing there.  He was the screenwriter for the respected TV series, Foyle's War and is also a successful children's author.  In this series, he makes fun of himself as a bumbling sidekick and the reader knows as little about Hawthorne as Horowitz has managed to learn.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Glovemaker by Ann Weisgarber

 

Deborah and her husband Samuel live in Junction, Utah in the late 1800's.  The first settler there was Samuel's stepbrother, Nels, who came there after his wife and child died in childbirth.  Later, other families came including Deborah's sister.  At the time of this novel, there were eight families there.  All are Latter Day Saints but one of the draws to Junction is that they have a step back from the authority of the Church and can make their own way more.

Each fall, Samuel goes away for several months to outlying towns.  He is a wheelwright and there is no other in a hundred miles.  This year, he hasn't returned on time but Nels and another man searched for him and found a rockslide that would have made him turn around and find a longer way home.  But it means that Deborah is by herself when the man comes.

Only one family in Junction practices multiple marriage, but the authorities suspect them all.  Men come there to be guided to a refuge where they can live the life they choose.  But rarely does a man come in January with snow blowing.  He knocks on Deborah's door and she feeds him but there is something about him she doesn't trust.  She knows Nels will guide him the next day and she agrees to shelter the man in her barn that night.  He eventually tells her that there is a marshal and his men chasing him which increases her worry.

The next day Nels sets off with the man, barely before the marshal arrives.  The man is belligerent and insists Deborah is lying and breaking the law.  He searches around the settlement and Nels and the man have returned due to the weather.  Somehow, the marshal is injured and the entire settlement is in jeopardy.

This was an interesting historical fiction based on truth.  The orchards of Junction are now within a national park and visitors are encouraged to pick the fruit when they visit.  The extensive research into live in the 1880's and the Mormon religion is particular is evident.  Deborah's love language is making gloves for those she loves.  Her courage in the absence of her husband and her determination to shelter the other inhabitants of Junction are stirring.  This book is recommended for historical fiction readers.   

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

 Ten years ago Amina al-Sirafi was known far and wide as a pirate queen, a woman who went after what she wanted whether it was treasures, men or just the thill of exploring a new place.  But now she is forty and has been away from the sea for a decade.  She is now a mother and lives quietly with her mother and daughter.  Then a visitor arrives.

It is the mother of one of Amina's former crew, a man who did not make it home from their last voyage.  The woman reports her granddaughter has been kidnapped by a wizard and wants to hire Amina to find her and return her.  Amina demurs but the woman insists Amina owes her and her son and offers her a fortune to take on the job.  Reluctantly, Amina agrees.

She gathers up her former crew, her first mate who has been taking care of the ship, a woman known for her skill with poisons, the best navigator in the world and her crew.  She also encounters her husband, a man she married before she realized he was a demon instead of a human.  They set sail and discover that the wizard is looking for a specific treasure and is willing to do anything to attain it.  He has managed to enthrall a sea monster twice the size of a ship and it does his bidding.  Can Amina find the girl and defeat the wizard?

Shannon Chakraborty is known for her fantasy novels.  Her fantasies are a bit different from the norm as she doesn't build an imagined world.  Instead she uses her extensive research into history to set her stories in a true setting.  The characters are enticing and Amina is the middle-aged heroine all women will love.   The loyalty and family feeling among the crew is heartfelt and Chakraborty has set the scene for further adventures from Amina and her crew.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.  

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

 

Eleanor Oliphant is a loner.  With her scarred face from a housefire when she was ten, she doesn't expect anyone to interact with her.  During the week she goes to work, a job she has had since the week she left university.  She's now thirty and the pay is terrible but perhaps that's all she is worth.  On weekends, she has vodka to get her through although she won't speak to anyone until Monday when she returns to start another week.  After the fire, she grew up in care where she was basically not much more than the furniture.  Her only outside contact is her mother, who calls to berate her once a week.  

But things change at work when Raymond comes to work in IT.  He works on Eleanor's computer and asks her to go to lunch.  While they are out, they help a man who has collapsed on the street.  As they go to visit him in the hospital and then meet his family at a going-home party, Eleanor realizes that she could have friends.  She develops a crush on a singer but then realizes she is nothing to him.

After her disappointment in love, Eleanor starts going to a counselor.  That woman allows Eleanor to examine her life and bring to the surface memories she has repressed since childhood.  Can Eleanor find her way to health and a normal life?

Gail Honeyman is a Scottish author.   This was her debut novel and it was incredibly successful, winning awards for First Novel and being selected by Reese's Book Club as a selection.  The reader will emphasize with Eleanor and wish for anything to happen to make her life better.  Eleanor's secrets are slowly revealed and the book ends with the prospect of Eleanor finally having a normal life.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

The Vortex by Jose Estacio Rivera

 

When Arturo Cova scandalizes Bogata by seducing the daughter of a wealthy family, he must flee.  He and Alicia head to the lands near the jungles of Columbia.  There Arturo discovers that Alicia is pregnant and his love for her soon starts to wane.  He starts looking around for new conquests and to discover what he will do next with his life.  The area they are in is rural and poor.  The two main occupations are owning a ranch and raising cattle or the rubber plantations.

Arturo leaves Alicia behind as he goes off with friends to try to be a cowboy.  He is chastened to learn that the real cowboys regard him as a liability, just a city slicker who wants to play at riding horses.  He never has any trouble finding friends as he goes but he also makes enemies of some of the wealthiest and most corrupt landowners.  

The novel is told in first person narrative as Arturo puts down his adventures and his reactions to the land.  He meets an older man who serves as his guide who has worked the rubber plantations for years and has the scars and debts to prove it.  Arturo documents the terrible plight of the rubber workers and how when they agree to work they are unknowingly signing up for lifetime servitude.  The owners underpay for product and vastly overcharge for the necessities of life and the workers get further and further into debt with them.  Most are scarred from beatings and disease is rampant.

Rivera was a Colombian lawyer.  He spent time in the jungles surveying the Columbian border and learned about the terrible lives of the natives and the rubber workers.  This novel, published in 1924, exposes both and was a sensation.  His depictions of the horror of the daily lives on the rubber plantations and the terrible treatment of the Indians who were routinely killed and robbed by the men who came to the jungles to exploit them.  This book is recommended for those who are interested in other cultures. 

Into The Fire by David Wiltse

 FBI Agent John Becker has finally found peace.  Haunted by his history of catching the worst of the worst, the serial killers that killed multiple times, he is not working these days.  In his mind, he is done with the Bureau.  But they insist this is an extended health leave.  John lives with Karen, another FBI agent and her son.  He cooks, plays with the son and lives a life free of stress and horror.

But a former supervisor shows up with the case of two women found in caves, their bodies tortured.  One is the niece of a Senator so the FBI wants the case solved.  John refuses but the man threatens Karen's career and transfers her instead to the serial killer unit.  Blackmailed, John agrees to work the case.

He has been getting anonymous letters from a prisoner and he goes to see him.  Becker hears a tale of a cellmate who brags about killing multiple people, men and women, young and old.  The man, Cooper, is a thug and barely above the line in intelligence.  He has spent his life bulling through, taking what he wants and using his size and strength whenever he meets resistance.  

When Becker goes to find him, he meets a female agent who he requests for the case.  He doesn't talk to her much and explains even less.  Eventually he tells her he requested her because she still has the innocence of a new agent and he needs that counterbalance to his cynicism and his feeling that he has become too much like the men he chases.  Can he find the killer?

David Wiltse is an author and playwright.  His books about FBI agent John Becker are some of the scariest and most tense psychological thrillers I've read.  Becker is a tortured soul who unfortunately is the best the FBI has but he feels that he does the work at the expense of his sanity and that each case brings him closer to there being no difference between the hunter and the prey.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.   

Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

 

This is the story of David Win, an Englishman whose life stretched from the late 1940's to the present.  David is the son of an English mother who is a dressmaker and a Burmese father whom he never met.  David and his mother live in a small English town but his intelligence and hard work nets him a scholarship at a private school.  He meets his benefactors who remain in his life for the entire span.  Their son, who is at the same school, is a bully who later rises in government and is famous for his Brexit stand.  

David has known he is gay since he was a boy but at that time, there is not much opportunity to be open about it.  We learn of the various loves of his life but they all occur after his time at university.  David has also shone as an actor and makes that his career.  We learn about not only David's life but the life and changes of England during this time period.

Alan Hollinghurst has won a Booker with his 2004 novel The Line Of Beauty.  His writing pulls in the reader even if huge events don't take place.  It takes an extraordinary writer to make the telling of a life interesting and Hollinghurst does exactly that.  The reader is fascinated by David's life over the decades, his loyalty to his family and friends and his quest for love that is rewarded by a husband he ends his time with.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel

 

Maeve started her life in a cult although to her it was just normal.  When she fled, it was to prevent another child from abuse but it exposed the cult and brought it down.  The main thing Maeve regretted was losing track of her best friend and cousin, Andrea.  Maeve was lucky enough to be adopted quickly and grew up in a middle class life.  These days, she is in New York City, using her education to work in the publishing industry as an editor.

Periodically she tried to find Andrea.  When she used one of the DNA companies, Andrea found her and they got together.  Andrea has done well.  She is an entrepreneur who is running a multimillion dollar company and she and her husband have just bought a mansion in upstate New York.  Maeve is embarrassed as her job is low paying, she lives in a tiny apartment and her main romantic interest is a guy she has just been sleeping with no strings attached.  

Andrea asks her to come up for a weekend.  Maeve agrees and rides up with Andrea's right hand help, Emily.  The company specializes in lifelike dolls and support for mothers from conception to grieving if necessary.  Maeve is a bit put off but glad to be back in Andrea's life.  When she returns to find that she has lost her job followed by a personal loss, she moves in with Andrea.  At first she is glad but as time goes on she suspects that things aren't as good as they see.

Anne Heltzel is known for her horror writing.  Like Maeve, she works in the publishing industry and like Andrea has moved to upstate New York in an old mansion.  In this book, the horror builds slowly as the reader tries to determine if Maeve is just unlucky or if there is malign purpose behind her issues.  The truth about the original cult is slowly revealed.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did a great job bringing the book to life.  This book is recommended for horror readers.  

Hide Me Among The Graves by Tim Powers

 

Tim Powers has a few obsessions.  Many of his books center around pirates and vampires and Victorian poets.  There are no pirates in this novel but there are vampires and poets.  Adelaide McKee, a former prostitute, and John Crawford, a veterinarian, meet on a bridge in London where they are attacked by a spirit.  They escape by jumping into the river below and their night together ends up producing a daughter.  The next time Crawford sees Adelaide, she tells him about his daughter and that she had thought she was dead but had recently heard that she was alive and now McKee needs Crawford's help to rescue their daughter.

The spirit that tried to capture them that night was John Polidori, a vampire.  He is also the uncle of poets Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  They have known about their uncle and have tried to subdue him since Christina was fourteen.  Now they are willing to join the fight to extinguish all the vampires in London.  Along with Polidori is the vampire Boudica who had been a Celtic queen who fought against Roman rule in London.  She and Polidori want to create an earthquake to destroy London.  To do so, they want McKee and Crawford's daughter to marry the miscarried baby of Gabriel.  They are also aided by Edward John Trelawny a man who helped poets Bryon and Shelley in their fight against vampires.

Tim Powers is famous in the fantasy genre.  One of his books was the inspiration for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  His books are like a rollercoaster, full of intrigue and power plays, violence and love.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.