Before I Forget by Tory Henwood Hoen

 

Cricket Campbell hasn't been to the lake and the cabin for over a decade.  She left after a tragedy rocked her world and set her on a path of dead end jobs and stalled relationships.  But now she is needed back on the lake.  Her father has Alzheimer's and needs someone to look after him.  Her sister, Carol, has been doing that but now she is headed to Europe for her job and someone else needs to step up.  

Cricket goes home, she thinks to help Carol find a new home for her dad but once she is there, she decides that she can stay and look after him at least for a while.  They both know her dad wants to stay on the lake in the cabin where he has lived for years.  Carol is hesitant but finally agrees and gives Cricket the strict schedule she has developed for their dad.

But once Carol is gone, Cricket decides that maybe the schedule isn't the best way to go.  Perhaps what her father needs is a life built around what he wants to do at any moment.  She settles in, spending hours with him just sitting on the porch or watching the lake.  Her dad has a friend who helps sometimes, a friend who is a neighbor.  Slowly she starts to realize that her dad is still thinking and sensing, it's just that he is reporting back from a different part of his brain.  Soon he is known as a wise man, a seer who can help others make sense of their lives.  But Cricket knows this is temporary.  What will happen in the future?

Tory Henwood Hoen is a Canadian-American author.  She writes lovingly about the relationship between Cricket and her father and the way that Cricket's ability to go with the flow frees her father not only to stay in his home but to thrive and find meaning in what Alzheimer's has left him.  In the process Cricket also has the time to resolve the tragedy that set her on her restless travels and find the stability to go forward with her life.  This novel is recommended for literary and women's fiction readers.   

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamante

 

This novel is set in Boston in the early 1900's and tells the story of the life of Addie Baum.  It is told by Addie now that she is eighty-five and is looking back at her life and telling her favorite granddaughter all about it.  Addie's family is Jewish and her parents are immigrants.  They come to America for a better life but expect to raise their three girls the way things were done in the old country.  Addie wants something more, something better.  She wants an education and a job that feels like she is contributing to society along with a family.

She joins a library group where she meets other girls who want the same kind of things she does.  That opens doors to a summer camp where she meets women from all classes and makes friends.  They help her get her first job at a newspaper and she meets more mentors there.  Addie is grateful for any help she gets and relishes knowing women who have accomplished what she wants.  Later, after a first love affair that doesn't go well, she meets her true love and they eventually marry.

Anita Diamante is an American author who writes about women and their place in society.  Her early book, The Red Tent, pointed out the injustice of menstrual shaming.  She writes about women who yearn for an education and how they use that to make lives different from what was traditional.  In this novel, Addie is a strong, determined woman who never stops trying to make her life have meaning.  This book is recommended for historical and women's fiction readers.   

The Truth And Other Lies by Sascha Arango

 

Henry Hayden is a famous author and doing quite well.  He lives with his wife in a large house and drives a luxury car.  He also has a mistress.  But Henry is not what he seems.  He has never written a single sentence.  His wife, who is extremely introverted, has written all of his best-sellers and has him submit them under his own name.  She loves Henry with all her heart.

But now things aren't going as planned.  Henry's mistress is pregnant and expects him to step up and be a loving father.  Henry arranges to meet her in an isolated spot along the cliffs and when he gets there, he pushes her car over the cliffs into the sea.  But, when he gets home, his mistress is there and informs him that she and his wife had swapped cars, so he has killed his wife rather than his mistress.

But some people live charmed lives and Henry is one of them.  Or is he?

Sascha Arango is a German writer who is known for his television screenplays.  This book is his debut novel and was a New York Times Notable book.  It is deftly plotted, with Henry rising above the fray no matter what happens.  Readers won't like him but will marvel at his ability to avoid the consequences of his actions.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

8 Lives Of A Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee

 

This novel tells the story of Korea, both North and South through the life of a woman who would do whatever it took to survive.  Through the years, she was a slave, a mother, a spy, a murderer, a terrorist, an escape artist, a lover and a trickster.  She goes by several names, her own as a girl, then one she appropriated as a woman.

As a young woman, she is kidnapped in the market along with her servant and taken miles away to serve as a comfort woman during World War II for the Japanese who had invaded Korea.  She becomes friends there with another woman and when that women dies, she takes her life as her own.  She finds a way to escape, killing some of the soldiers, and escapes along with the other women.  She makes her way back to the other woman's home and starts living as her with the other woman's husband and child.

But governments are not through with her yet.  In order to survive, she must become a spy and a terrorist.  She finally escapes to South Korea where she builds yet another life.

Mirinae Lee grew up in Korea and now lives in Hong Kong.  This is her debut novel and it has received many awards, including being longlisted for the Women's Fiction Prize.  The story is inspired by one of Lee's relatives who was one of the oldest women to ever escape from North to South Korea.  The book portrays the poverty and starvation suffered by the people of North Korea as a tyrant governs them.  The trickster will do whatever is needed to survive and protect the people she loves, no matter how difficult or what it takes from her personally.  The novel is told in interconnected stories and it is an amazing debut.  I can't wait to see what this author will do next.  This book is recommended for multicultural and literary fiction readers  

The Book Club For Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick

 

The time is the 1960's and the place is a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC.  The suburb is full of stay-at-home moms, men who worked grueling careers and tons of expectations.  Men were to work and support the family.  Women were to stay at home, cleaning and watching the children and making a home.  The man was the undisputed head of the household.  Women couldn't open a bank account or buy a car by themselves but had to have their husband's permission and signature.

Four women get tired of the usual gossipy coffee klatches and decide to start a book club.  Margaret has three children and wants to be a writer.  As far as she has gotten is a household tip column in a women's magazine.  Bitsy is just married.  She wanted to be a veterinarian but had to settle for marrying one instead.  Viv has six children and another on the way.  She was a nurse during the War and would love to restart her career.  Charlotte is the outrider.  She comes from money and has designer clothes.  Her two children are almost grown and her husband spends his life working for her father and cheating on her every chance he gets.  Charlotte spends her time painting although she isn't sure she has enough talent to make it.  She is the one who chooses the first book, Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique. 

As the women read the book and discuss it's ideas, they start to change.  They form a support group and each one starts to go after her dreams  It isn't an easy road but they are committed to making changes and not living the stultifying life they have been dealt.  Things change in their lives, some changes positive, some negative but whatever happens they have each other.  

Marie Bostwick is an American author and has written over twenty books, most in the women's fiction genre.  This is my first book by her but I enjoyed it quite a lot and will be looking for more of her work.  I was in elementary school in this time period so this is the story of my mother's generation.  I remember how little support there was when she decided to go back to teaching; she couldn't drive and still had to handle all the cooking and cleaning.  I was a young adult in the 1970's and I do remember having to be married to get the birth control pill and having a man at the car dealership tell me I needed to bring my husband if I wanted to buy a car.  Things have changed quite a bit and I hope younger women read this book and see where their freedoms started and how strong women had to be in order to claim their own rights to live lives they dreamed of.  This book is recommended for women's fiction readers.    

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

 

Considered one of the great American novels, Blood Meridian tells the story of the Old West, not the one of John Wayne fame, but the one of hard men and bloody battles, of little sentiment and the willingness to kill men for little or no reason.  It is set in the deserts and small towns of the American southwest and northern Mexico in the time period 1849 and 1850, after the American-Mexican War.

The reader follows the life and growing up of 'The Kid' who is fourteen when the story starts.  An orphan, he does whatever he can to stay alive and falls in with the Captain Glanton gang.  This gang roams the area, killing and scalping both Native Americans and Mexicans for the bounty on their heads.  They are an especially brutal gang in a land of brutality and blood lust.  The Kid is a sharpshooter and willing to kill to defend himself but he doesn't have the blood thirst of the rest of the gang, just the desire to have a purpose and food and shelter.

The villain of the book is The Judge.  He is described as an almost supernatural being, seven feet tall, bald, a man who has vast knowledge but no mercy.  When he and The Kid fall out, The Judge tracks him across miles and miles of desert but never manages to kill him.  The Judge adopts a man who had been displayed in sideshows as a brute but who was in reality someone who was mentally challenged.  The Judge regards him as a possession rather than another human being.

This was a reread for me and I anticipate reading it again.  This novel is considered an American classic and shows the opposite side of the Western expansion, that of the brutality and bloodlust of those who wrenched the land away from earlier inhabitants.  It sets aside the concept of Manifest Destiny and shows what really took place in the American desire to capture all land between the oceans.  

Cormac McCarthy was an American author who many consider one of the best American novelists to come along.  In addition to this novel, he wrote the Border Trilogy books, No Country For Old Men and The Road which won the Pulitzer Prize.  I love his writing although it is bleak and violent and not for everyone.  This book is recommended for historical and literary fiction readers.   

The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves

 

A group of school mates meet up every five years on the island where they first connected at a school workshop.  Now in their late sixties, they can look back and see if the bright futures they anticipated as teenagers has played out.  Some are not there; Dan quit coming after he and Annie divorced and Isabella died in a car accident at the first reunion.  Ken is now in the early stages of dementia but his wife Louise takes care of him.  Rick went on to be a celebrated journalist and media player but lost much of his career when allegations of sexual misconduct with young girls hit the papers.  Phil is perhaps the most surprising.  A party guy, he became an Anglican priest after Isabella's death.  Annie is still living near the island, running a deli on the other side of the island causeway.

Everyone enjoys the first night, laughing and reminiscing and drinking.  But when Annie goes to wake Rick for breakfast the next morning, she finds him dead, hanging from the ceiling of his bedroom.  Was it suicide?  Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team are called to the scene and she quickly decides this is no suicide.  Rick has been murdered.

Vera and her team, Joe Ashworth and Holly Clarke, start to investigate.  Vera feels that the solution lies in the death of Isabella at the first reunion, some secret that has remained hidden for fifty years and festered.  The teacher who arranged the first conference is still in the area as is Rick's ex-wife.  Both of them have secrets as well.  Can Vera and her team solve the murder before more deaths occur?

This was the tenth Vera Stanhope mystery.  Ann Cleeves is a recognized mystery master, writing both the Vera Stanhope and the Shetland mystery series, as well as recently branching out into new series.  She lives in the Northumberland area many of her books are set in.  I listened to this one and the narrator did such an excellent job, her accent making the location and characters come alive.  The mystery is rooted in the past of the characters and Vera and her team are the best at digging into the past and excavating the secrets hidden there.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Unspeakable Acts Of Zina Pavlou by Eleni Kyriacou

 

Eva Georgiou is a Cypriot interpreter for the police in London, a side job she does to supplement her work as the hatcheck girl at a local club.  Her husband, Jimmy, works a night job so they often don't see much of each other and their marriage is strained after the loss of a baby.  But Eve never expected what she discovered when the police called her in to interpret.

Zina Pavlou is a tiny Cypriot woman, her five children grown and scattered.  She has lived in one Cyprus village her own life but her son has sent her the money to come for a visit.  Zina is hoping that the visit will turn into a permanent thing.  Her son is married to Hedy and has two children, a little girl named Anna and a new baby.

But things had not gone well and the fault lay depending on whom you spoke to.  Hedy says that Eva is overbearing and criticizes Hedy's housekeeping and how she raises her children.  Eva says that Hedy tries to keep her from the children and comes between Zina and her son.  Regardless of who is correct, Eva's son sides with his wife and they tell Zina that she must leave.  Soon after, Hedy is found dead, brutally murdered.

Zina is arrested but cannot communicate with the police.  Eva is brought in to interpret and she becomes fascinated with Zina and the case.  There are occasional hints that this might not be Zina's first murder and Eva believes that Zina has mental health issues.  Soon Eva is not translating faithfully but only telling the police the things that she believes make Zina look better.  Will Zina be found guilty?

Eleni Kyriacou is the daughter of Greek Cypriot parents who immigrated to London and married there.  The book reflects a true case, that of the penultimate woman to be hanged in Britain.  The reader will have sympathy for everyone in the book, for Zina whose life hasn't turned out like she expected, For Eva who is caught up in sympathy and for the son and his wife whose good act turned out much differently than they expected.  This book is recommended for mystery and multicultural readers.  

Heart The Lover by Lily King

 

She meets them in a college class when the professor picks her essay to read.  Sam and Yash are best friends and living in a professor's house this senior year while he is on sabbatical.  Sam asks her out and she accepts although the first date is awkward.  It gets better when Yash comes home with his engaging extroverted personality.  Soon she is a regular with Sam but spending most of her time at the house, meeting all their friends and playing cards.  The crew nicknames her Jordan and that is how she is known for the rest of her time at university

When she and Sam break up, she and Yash admit their attraction.  Both feel that being together would be unfair to Sam but the attraction is more than they can resist.  When Sam finds out, there is a schism and Yash hangs with one or the other but it puts a strain on him.  He and Jordan plan to move to New York after graduation but Yash is still torn.  

Jumping forward, the three don't see each other for years.  By the time Yash asks if he can stop by on his way to see other friends, Jordan has been married for years and has two boys.  She and Yash part as friends but both are keeping secrets.  Will there be a time when all the truth comes out?

Lily King is an American author who writes about the twists and turns of relationships.  Her books have won many awards and I expect the same will be true about this one.  I loved this novel and I'm sure it will be one of my favorites for the year.  She captures the truth about first loves, college friendships and how our choices in our youth influence our entire life.  The ending will both break your heart and give the reader hope for life.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah

 

The news is brutal; a mother and young daughter had been found dead, each in a separate bathtub.  Worse, it appears as if the mother killed them both after a diary emerges that outlines her frustration with being a stay-at-home mother.  The husband, Mark Bretherick, is not a suspect as he was in the United States at a convention the entire week and had found the bodies when he arrived home.

Sally Thorning is shocked at the news, then shocked again when she sees Mark Bretherick.  She is a working mother, desperate to handle both a successful career and a marriage and two small children.  Last year, she had taken a week to herself and ended up having a fling with a man.  A man who gave his name as Mark Bretherick and described his wife and daughter and house.  A man who is not the Mark Bretherick whose picture is in the paper.

Things are different at the local police these days.  Charlie Zailer had transferred out of the detective section after she was humiliated at a party by the man she loves, Simon Waterhouse.  Simon is still in the detective bureau and missing Charlie, the only person he had trusted to understand his brilliant but offbeat thinking.  He doesn't know how he feels about her emotionally, as Simon's emotions are not something he spends time thinking about.  He is, however, sure that Geraldine Bretherick did not kill her daughter and herself and he is desperate to prove it.  Can he?

This is the third novel in the Zailer/Waterhouse series.  Sophie Hannah is a well-known name in the mystery genre and her plots twist and turn like a rollercoaster.  Readers will enjoy the slow building romance between Waterhouse and Zailer and spend as much pondering it as the mystery.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Testament Of Mary by Colm Toibin

 

In this short novel, Mary is nearing the end of her life.  She is hidden away from the enemies of Jesus although she wonders if her overseers are friends or foes.  Mary looks back over her own life and that of her son.  She relates the day of his crucifixion and his agony.  In this telling, Mary and her cousin leave behind his death, slipping away so that they would not be rounded up with the rest of his followers as they knew the plan to be.  She left the cleansing of his body and his burial to others and this is her greatest regret.

Colm Toibin is an Irish author whose books have been nominated four times for the Booker Prize along with many other awards.  This book was longlisted in 2013 for the Booker.  It gives an alternate testament of the times surrounding the death of Jesus and underlines the dichotomy Mary's life became, as a mother and an icon of the religion.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.   

The Loneliness Of Sonia And Sunny

 

Sonia and Sunny are both Indian but living in the United States on a visa.  Sunny is working as an entry level journalist and living with an American woman.  Sonia falls in love with an older artist who uses his art to control and ultimately, degrade her.  She loses her job in a gallery after the affair breaks up and must return to India where she is adrift, not sure what direction her life should take next.

When Sunny returns home for a visit, the two meet and there is a spark but Sonny is attached.  When he returns to the United States and finds his girlfriend gone, the spark between the two becomes more serious.  Sonia goes to Goa to research an article and Sunny joins her there.  

But Sonia cannot get a visa to return to the United States and Sunny does not want to live in India where his controlling mother will try to run his life.  Their romance takes them next to Venice but while there they discover an exhibit by the artist who was involved with Sonia and when she sees the pictures he has painted of her, she is humiliated and flees back to India.  Sunny returns to the United States where he gets his green card and then moves to Mexico on a grant to study the culture there.  Will the two get together?

Kiran Desai is an Indian author who immigrated to the United States when she was sixteen.  Her novel The Inheritance Of Loss won the Booker Prize and this novel was also nominated for that award.  I loved this novel.  It is a sprawling book that introduces the reader to different versions of India, that of wealthy and poor inhabitants.  The culture and family expectations are finely drawn and readers will cheer on the love affair between Sonia and Sunny.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Murderland by Caroline Fraser

 

This intensely researched book has a theory: the time in the 1970's-1980's that saw many serial killers in the Northwest states was a direct result of the smelting and release of toxins into the environment, specifically lead and arsenic.  Fraser follows the rise of the mineral extraction business from its beginning and how the industry was first centered in Pennsylvania but later moved to the Northwest, specifically the area around Tacoma, Washington.

She then gives examples of various serial killers who grew up in the area such as Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway and others.  Much of the book follows Ted Bundy from his birth to his execution in Florida years later and details the various crimes he committed in states such as Washington, Idaho, Colorado and Florida.  She also talks in detail about other killers such as Israel Keyes, Dennis Rader, Richard Ramirez and George Russell on Mercer Island.  

Fraser presents research showing the correlation between lead exposure and violence, presenting the lead levels released in various years.  She also shows a decrease in these types of crime as the smelting industry was finally brought into compliance with EPA levels that were steadily lowered.  

Carolina Fraser is an American author whose prior work, Prairie Fires, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.  This book was selected a New York Post Notable Book, Edgar Award finalist for true crime and a best book by various publications.  I was impressed by the research and the way she used the lead exposure to track alongside the stories of these violent men.  I'm not sure that I'm convinced that this was the sole reason for this spate of occurrences.  Why only these men when the exposure was felt by thousands of people?  I'm also leery of those men who didn't live there for their entire childhood such as Keyes and Rader but who grew up in various states as their families moved from location to location.  Also, there are serial killers in other locations during this time period such as the Son of Sam and they continue to the present such as the Long Island Killer.  Still, this is a work that merits reading and serious consideration.  I'm glad to have discovered Fraser and intend to read the rest of her work  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers, specifically science and true crime readers.  

Special Topics In Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

 

Blue van Meer has had an unusual upbringing.  Her mother died in an auto accident when Blue was five.  She grew up moving from town to town as her father took visiting professorships in various colleges and universities.  He made sure that Blue didn't lack for an education and indeed, she is far advanced from her peers although he has done most of her education himself.  As she nears her senior year, he promises Blue a year in one town so that she could more easily apply for her own university experience.  

They settle in a small Southern town and Blue is enrolled at St. Galloway, an exclusive school.  She is used to being the new girl and not having friends but for some reason the drama teacher, Hannah Schneider, takes Blue under her wing and invites her to her Sunday salon where the school's most popular students came.  Jade is the queen bee with Leulah her beautiful second.  Charles is the school's most desired boy and Mr. Everything, good in every sport and class president and prom king.  Nigel is slight but highly intelligent.  Milton is Blue's first real crush, a boy who seems older and a bit dangerous.

With her new friends, Blue becomes a more typical teenager.  They go to bars with fake ids, drink until they are drunk (a new experience for Blue) and the other girls pick up men for a night of fun.  The Sunday lunches are full of exciting topics and hints of mystery, most of which is supplied by the back story of Hannah, whom the students adore but want to know everything about.  When things turn dark, Blue realizes that once again she is on her own and must solve the mystery that she never knew influenced her entire life.

I adore Marisha Pessl.  She is an American author who grew up in Ashville, North Carolina, which is very similar to the setting of this novel.  She was twenty-eight when she wrote this novel so she was close enough in age to the characters to remember how high school attendees were.  Blue is the narrator of the novel and her intelligence yet naiveté is dominant.  The writing is very erudite yet the reader seldom feels lost.  The mystery bursts onto the scene late in the book with only the slightest hints that it is coming and the solution is one I never saw coming.  I can only hope Pessl has another novel in the works and highly recommend this one for literary fiction readers.   

The Turn Of The Key by Ruth Ware

 

Rowan Caine is dissatisfied with her life.  Working as an assistant in a childcare facility in London, she doesn't have a boyfriend, her roommate is going traveling for a year without her, and she doesn't have realistic hopes of advancement at her job.  So when she sees the ad looking for a nanny with a fantastic salary, she answers right away.

Her resume gets her an interview and soon Rowan is off to Heatherbrae House, in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands.  There she meets Sandra Ellencourt, an architect.  She and her husband Bill have four children, all girls.  They range in age from fourteen to a toddler.  The Ellencourts have designed their house to be an advertisement for their business.  It is full of modern age technology, with cameras in every room and automatic locks and heating and a program that oversees everything called Happy.  

Rowan is offered the job even though Sandra tells her that four nannies have left suddenly in the recent past and that she and Brian are leaving on a work conference the next week.  The oldest daughter is at boarding school and Rowan feels that she can handle an eight, six and eighteen-month old on her own.  But the girls don't warm to her except for the baby.  The two girls at home run off with their parents' permission on long explorations of the outdoors.  That upsets Rowan as there are ponds and dangers in the woods and even a poison garden, one of the few in existence and protected by the government.  

The strangeness continues inside.  Keys go missing, then reappear.  She thinks she hears someone outside her windows and she knows she hears a creak, creak, creak at night overhead as if someone were walking in an attic, an attic she is told doesn't exist.  There is a woman who comes in to cook and clean who doesn't like Rowan on sight and a caretaker who is also young and who Rowan flirts with but doesn't trust. 

The book is written as a series of letters, mostly from Rowan to a solicitor general.  A child has died under her watch and she is arrested for murder.  What really happened and what was the secret that Rowan herself was keeping?

Ruth Ware is a British author who started in the young adult genre then switched to adult mysteries in 2015.  She has released ten books since then and most have been very successful.  In this one, I felt that the ending was a bit abrupt after a lot of buildup with many tension raising events.  I did like the device of the story being told through the letters which gives the author the ability to ramble on if she feels like it and unlike a conversation could have allowed.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Departures by Julian Barnes

 

This book is a mix of memoir and novel.  Julian Barnes was approaching eighty as he wrote this and endings are on his mind.  He talks about the blood cancer he has been fighting since 2020.  He talks about the death of his beloved wife.  But he also talks about a love story he played a part in, not once but twice.

In university, he played a part in bringing together Stephen and Jean, both of whom were friends of his.  He didn't have a love interest at the time and he felt a part of their love and was quite disappointed when they broke up.  Forty years later, Stephen approached him about bringing he and Jean back together and Barnes does.  The two fall back in love but alas, the ending is the same.

Julian Barnes is one of England's best authors.  He has been nominated for the Booker Prize four times and his novel, A Sense Of An Ending, won in 2011.  I've read the majority of his books and enjoyed them all.  I am sad to see him writing what he says will be his last book.  On a lighter note, I read that he married the woman he was in a relationship with in this memoir when he had reached eighty and I was pleased that he had trusted love once again.  This book is recommended for memoir and Barnes fans.  

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

 

One of the world's most famous artists, J KAT, is dying and his most famous painting, of the sea, a pier and three figures sitting at the end of the pier, is being auctioned.  What no one knows is that the winning bid comes from the artist and he reclaims the picture he painted at fifteen.  The figures at the end of the pier are his friends, his chosen family, Joar, Ali and Ted.  Before he dies, the artist finds a young girl painting on the walls of an ally and he recognizes another talent as original as his.  He makes the decision to leave her the painting.

Ted has lived with the artist for the past few years, tending him in his illness.  He finds the girl, Louisa, and gives her the painting.  She doesn't want to take it, not believing in her own art or why anyone would like it.  But this is just like the artist at her age and Ted knows the artist has made the right decision.  

In order to convince Louisa to take the painting, he pays for them both to take the train back to his hometown where he hasn't been in twenty-five years and tells her the story of the summer the painting was created and the four friends who loved each other.  

Ted's father died when he was eight and he has never recovered from that.  Ali has a con man for a father and the family has to move whenever his cons are discovered or he borrows money he can't pay back.  Joar lives with an alcoholic father who beats him and his mother mercilessly.  The artist lives in a vacuum at home, no one in his family talking or caring about anyone else.  When they find each other, they make their own family and that summer seems like it will last forever.

Fredrik Backman's novels have been huge successes and this one is no different.  He writes about the difficulty of growing up and the need of children to have love.  If they can't get it at home, they will find friends to give it to.  Although there is death in this book, it is life-affirming and the reader will be swept into the lives of these four teenagers and how they survive in a cold world, a world that has identified them as outsiders.  The love between the four is inspiring and the recognition of Louisa as the same kind of person and the way she is brought into their world is fascinating.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

 

Leo Demidov is a war hero in the Soviet Union.  After the war, he joined the security office where he tracks down traitors for the state.  He knows that the men and women he brings in face execution or a long stay in the various gulags but he is a true believer in the state and thinks he is doing good.  He is married to Raisa who is a teacher and whose entire family was killed during the war.

But all of that won't save you if you have an enemy with influence and Leo does.  His subordinate wants Leo's job and he convinces their superior to set Raisa up as a traitor just to see if Leo will be true to the state over his personal love for her.  Leo fails the test and the two of them are demoted and sent to a small village hours away.

Before Leo left the security service, one of his jobs was to convince a family that their small son had not been murdered but had been hit by a train.  When he gets to the new town, he finds out that there have been child murders there as well, and as he investigates, he realizes that the one in Moscow was the forty-fourth victim.  All the cases have been closed with the blame being put on those the state wants to get rid of, homosexuals, those with mental issues, those suspected of various crimes.  But Leo realizes that this is the work of one man.  To even investigate is to commit treason against the state as they have closed the cases, but Leo knows if he is not caught, the murderer will continue.  Can he find the killer?

This was Tom Rob Smith's debut novel and it received many awards including a Booker nomination.  The author went on to write two more novels that featured this environment.  Readers will learn how bleak the Soviet Union was after the war and how everyone lived in fear of being arrested and accused of being a traitor.  Friends were pitted against friends, family against family.  The entire organization was corrupt with those in favor being given material goods and influence while always balancing on a thin line.  The identity of the murderer is another shock in this novel.  This book is recommended not only for mystery readers but for historical and literary fiction readers as well.

Eclipse by John Banville

 After famous actor Alexander Cleave has a nervous breakdown on stage, he returns to his childhood home to recover.  His wife is not in favor of this and she believes that he is going in order to leave her and their marriage.  Besides his wife, Alexander has a grown daughter who he and his wife have had a difficult relationship with and who is currently working overseas.

He arrives to find a house deserted for years and direly in need of cleaning.  He and his wife clean what they can before she leaves to go back to their home in London.  He gets the keys from Quirk who works for the local lawyer and has been working as the caretaker of the house, not very well from what Alexander has seen.

He settles in but does not relax.  Soon he believes that he is seeing and hearing ghosts as he believed as a boy growing up there.  Quirk brings his daughter to help with cooking and cleaning but she is a typical teenager and spends her time reading trashy magazines and rolling her eyes when Alexander asks her to do something.  When his wife returns, it is to news that is a tragedy to them both and they leave again.

John Banville has written over forty books in various series.  This one is the start of what was to be a trilogy but has this novel and Shroud.  He has won the Booker Prize and been nominated several other times for it.  Banville readers will be surprised that he names the caretaker Quirk as he has a series featuring a detective named Quirke but there is no overlap between the two characters.  The book is told in first person and the reader will slowly come to understand Alexander and his life and mind through his telling of this story.  I think it is impossible for Banville to write a bad book and I really enjoyed this one which is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

A Strange And Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

 

Velasin vin Aaro grows up in Ralia where he has to hide his real self.  He has known since he was a child that he was attracted to men rather than women and that is a scandal in his country.  He deals with it by moving away from his family, as far away as he can get to a place where he can live as he needs to.  But when Velasin is called home, it is to find that his father has created an alliance with a neighboring kingdom's influential family with a marriageable daughter.  Velasin is to go there and marry the woman.  

He is willing, he guesses but that night his lover follows him to his father's house.  The two are caught having relations by the other family's envoy.  Velasin's father is furious and disowns him but the envoy says he has a solution.  Tithenai is not judgmental and the influential family also has a son that Velasin can marry.

Velasin agrees and goes the next morning to start his journey to Tithenai.  Along the way, the caravan is attacked and Velasin's best friend is injured by an arrow.  When he arrives in Tithenai, Velasin meets Caethari Aeduria who is to be his husband.  Caethari is a soldier and interested in serving his country however he can.  The marriage happens immediately and the two husbands are left to work out a relationship.

But someone isn't happy with the marriage.  Attacks continue and Caethari's father is attacked.  Velasin's horse is killed as is a groom in another incident.  Are the attacks targeting Velasin or is the Aeduria family the target?  Can the two men discover who is behind the attacks?

Foz Meadows is an Australian author who writes in the science fiction and fantasy genre and who started in the fan fiction world.  The story is about a gay relationship that starts with the participants as strangers who then start to like and finally love each other.  There is magic involved and lots of politics and individuals hiding their true motives.  Velasin's best friend is mute which also plays a part in the story.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did an excellent job.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers and those looking for stories about gay relationships.

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

 

This novella tells the story of Robert Grainger, a man who is one of those who settle the West.  He marries but there is no work where he builds their cabin so he goes every summer further out West to work as a logger.  That money will hold him, his wife and baby daughter until the next summer.

One year when he comes home, it is to find that a fire has devastated the town and its outlying forest.  He goes to his cabin to find it in ashes and no sign of his wife and daughter.  He spends weeks looking for them, traveling to different towns in the area to see if anyone knows what happened to them but has no luck discovering them.  He has a dream that his wife died by drowning but that the baby survived and when the townspeople later talk about a 'wolf-girl' he wonders if that is his child.

Over the years, as he gets older, he has to give up logging.  He works as a carter transporting goods for various people and any other jobs he can find.  His is a bleak life but he learns to make it enough for him.

Denis Johnson is an American author who also wrote poetry.  This novella describes the rough life of the settlers in the West.  It also talks about the Chinese immigrants brought to the country to build the railroads then discriminated against once that work was done, the necessity of men being able to be a jack of all trades, the rough winters and hunger that often occurred and other features of life in that era.  It was a New York Times Notable Book as well as one of NPR's Best Novels of the year.  This book is recommended for readers of literary and historical fiction.

The Dying Hours by Mark Billingham

 

After the disastrous way his last case ended, DI Tom Thorne has been removed from the Murder Squad and reassigned to a different police station and job.  He now heads up the police on the street and goes there himself most nights.  It is a demotion and he feels it deeply.  The only thing that seems to be going well is his new relationship with Helen, who is also a police officer and her young son, Alfie.

Thorne notices that there are an unusual number of suicides among the elderly in his district and the methods chosen are unnecessarily brutal.  What is causing the rise?  Thorne suspects that these are actually clever murders but his new superiors think he is just overly suspicious due to his past assignments and his desire to be back solving murders.  Then Thorne discovers a connection between the victims no one else had noticed and using his friends of many years as resources, sets out to solve the case by himself.

This is the eleventh Tom Thorne novel.  As always, once Thorne gets the bit in his teeth, there is no reining him in.  He is obsessive about the case and willing to put his friends in danger of their jobs as he uses them to find the answers he is sure are out there.  I loved the interaction between Thorne and Alfie and hope this relationship with Helen and her son continues.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Nature Of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner

 

Sophie Whalen left Ireland to come to the United States.  She expected to live with her brother but he fell in love, married and moved to Canada.  Left in New York by herself, the best Sophie could do was work in a sweatshop and live in a ratty tenement.  Was this what she came for?  Then she saw the ad.  A man in San Francisco was looking for a wife to keep his house and raise his young daughter after he found himself a widower.  Sophie answered the ad and was shocked but pleased when she was chosen.  

After a long journey, she meets Martin Hocking and they go immediately to City Hall and marry.  She is taken to a beautiful house she never thought she could live in and met Kat who is seven.  Kat has taken her mother's death hard and doesn't speak, having retreated into herself.  Sophie quickly becomes close to her as she always wanted children and it is usually only the two of them.  Martin tells her he works in insurance and has to travel most of the time.  Sophie and Kat explore San Francisco and slowly Kat starts to emerge from her shell.  

Then the doorbell rings.  Another woman is standing there and she thinks that she is Martin's wife.  What is going on?  As the two women confer and look for paperwork, they find that Martin is a serial con man who marries multiple women.  Why?  What does he hope to gain?  Martin returns just in time for the women to confront him and then the San Francisco earthquake hits.  Sophie, Kat and the other woman escape but Martin is left behind, perhaps to live, perhaps to die.

Susan Meissner is an American author who writes in the women's fiction genre.  In this novel, I learned a lot about the San Francisco earthquake I never knew and I gained new respect for the magnitude of this natural disaster.  Everyone in the novel had secrets and these are uncovered to explain everything.  Sophie is the heroine and her love for Kat is her defining characteristic.  This book is recommended for women's and historical fiction readers.  

Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors by Ann Rule

 In this anthology, Ann Rule writes about cases where friends or neighbors were the agents of violence.  The book starts with two longer novellas.  The first is about the Susan Powell case and the evil perpetrated by her husband and father-in-law.  The second is about the case of Becky Zahua whose body was found hung while she was nude days after her boyfriend's young son fell in an accident that took his life.

Other cases are shorter and include things like a young girl who disappeared while her aunt was watching her go around the house into the back yard, another teenage girl whose mother saw her wrestling with what turned out to be her killer in their yard and other cases.

Ann Rule is known as the queen of true crime.   She was a former Seattle police officer and her 35 true crime books are all still in print, although Ann died in 2015.  She rose to fame when she wrote The Stranger Beside Me about Ted Bundy.  She and Bundy worked together on a suicide prevention line.  This is the sixteenth book in her series Crime Files and is recommended for true crime readers.  

Lost Souls Meet Under A Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura

 

The rules are simple.  A person, if they can find and contact the go-between, can request to see one person who has passed.  The go-between contacts the dead person and if they agree to see the requestor, arranges a meeting place.  The dead person can only agree to see one person also.  

In this book, we see various scenarios in which this plays out.  One is a fan who asks to see her idol who passed away.  One is a grumpy man who asks to see his mother to ask her advice about the family business.  A friend asks to see her best friend.  A man asks to see his fiancée who left on what she said was a trip with a friend from her office and never returned.  He has waited seven years to find out if she is still living and just left him or if something happened and she has passed over. 

We also learn about the go-betweens.  There is always only one, and the ability to perform this is passed down through one family.  The current go-between is a teenage boy who is about to take over for his grandmother who is having heart issues.  She lets him in on the family secret and starts to train him for his lifelong role.

Mizuki Tsujimura is a Japanese author.  She specializes in the young adult genre, both fantasy and mystery.  Mystery is her favorite genre but this fantasy book was excellent.  I didn't really expect to like it but found myself fascinated at the premise of the book and how it played out in different situations.  Readers will probably find themselves thinking about whom they would ask to see in this scenario.  The entire topic is treated with sensitivity and the book is interesting.  Young adult and fantasy readers are recommended to read this book. 

Playground by Richard Powers

 

It starts with a friendship.  Rafi is a young black boy, scarred by a family tragedy and growing up in poverty.  Todd is a white rich kid with parents who ignore him.  They meet at an exclusive academy, Todd through wealth and Rafi on a scholarship Todd's father created.  The two boys find common ground in their love of games and the fact that they are the two brightest students at the academy.  Soon they are best friends and tell each other the things they shared with no one else.

Their friendship continues into college where a third person is added to their friendship.  Ina grew up in the Polynesian islands, moving from naval base to naval base with her family.  Both young men fall in love with her but she chooses Rafi.  The friendship starts to diverge.  Ina is an artist who makes huge sculptures.  Rafi falls into literature trying to figure out the truths of the world.  Todd takes another way, becoming engrossed in the rising computer industry and the birth of the Internet.  After a huge fight in their senior year, the three fall apart.

Meanwhile, Evie who is older than the three by a generation, lives for diving and exploring the sea.  She was one of the earliest people to dive as her father created one of the first underwater breathing apparatuses.  When grown, Evie marries and has children but the ocean is always her first love and fascination.  She spends most of her time away from her family on diving trips to research the ocean, leaving the family responsibilities to her husband.

Makatea is a small island in French Polynesia.  Rai, Ina and Evie all end up there.  The island had been gutted by phosphate farming years ago and is only now recovering.  Now another American organization wants to develop Makatea and create self-contained floating cities that would be launched into the ocean.   The island inhabitants will decide if this will happen.  When Rafi discovers that Todd, who is now an Internet billionaire, is behind the plan, he leads the opposition.  What will happen?

Richard Powers is an American treasure.  His interests lie in environmentalism and in technology.  He uses this novel to bring the two together and question if technology could be the mechanism that can solve some of the environmental problems the world is facing.  He has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for fiction and been longlisted four times for the Booker Prize.  In this book, the reader learns about the wonder of the oceans and the creatures who inhabit it while also learning about the history of the small islands in Polynesia.  The main characters are both hard to warm up to although Ina is a delight as is the Queen of the island who keeps the traditional songs and stories of the island alive.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers as well as those worried about the environment and those who love the oceans. 

The Pink Hotel by Liska Jacobs

 

Kit and Keith Collins have just gotten married.  Keith has arranged a stay at a luxury resort hotel in Los Angeles, right out of downtown.  What Keith hasn't told Kit is that it's also a job interview for him.  He manages a hotel back in their small town and he wants to move up.  He'd love to work at the Pink Hotel with its ultra-rich clientele and movie stars.

Keith takes right to the wealthy life but Kit isn't sure she will ever fit in.  Keith leaves her alone for long hours while he's working as part of the interview and she is left on her own.  She is taken up by a young wealthy girl and her group, who spend their lives shopping for couture dresses and accessories and going from party to party where they drink and do drugs.  

She and Keith both also befriend Coco who has worked at the hotel for ten years and who is the manager's mistress.  Through her Kit meets the staff and the crew doing construction for more bungalows at the hotel.  She is more comfortable with this group as they all would have been friends back home.

But other things are going on.  There are fires in the California hills and as they creep closer and closer to Los Angeles, the hotel guests are confined to the premises.  Those who are evacuated and wealthy enough come to stay and soon the hotel is bursting at the seams but understaffed as some of the employees can't get there.  The parties get more frantic and Kit and Keith's new marriage is strained to the breaking point.  

Liska Jacobs is an American author whose work often focuses on modern women and the conflicts they face in their daily lives.  Keith comes across as a taker and a man who believes he can make all the decisions in their marriage.  Kit is vulnerable, taken out of her comfortable environment and exposed to things she has never experienced.  Readers will want to continue reading to see how things all work out.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did an excellent job.  This book is recommended for both literary fiction and women's fiction readers.   

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

 Marcellus is a Pacific octopus.  After a run-in with a wolf eel, he was captured and brought to the aquarium, where he has lived out his life in an exhibit.  Marcellus, who is quite smart, feels imprisoned and at night, gets out of his cage and visits the other parts of the aquarium and the other inhabitants, some of whom he eats, whoops!

Tova is the night cleaner.  She took the job after her husband passed away and she is meticulous in cleaning.  She lost her only son when he was eighteen in a boating accident.  She is the only one who knows Marcellus' secrets and they have become friendly.  

Cameron is a thirty year old who has drifted through life.  His mother was an addict and when he was little, took him to his aunt's house for a visit and never came back for him.  He never knew who his father was.  He is quite brilliant but has drifted from job to job.  When his best friends are prospective parents, he knows he needs to grow up.  He finds a clue that he thinks will lead him to his father and picks up stakes and moves sixteen hours north to the little town where the aquarium is.  The only job he can get is also cleaner at the aquarium, filling in for Tova after she falls.  The two become friends as Tova can't resist coming to the place even while on sick leave.  Marcellus knows a secret about them but can he find a way to let them know as well?

Shelby Van Pelt is an American author who was raised in the Pacific Northwest where the book is set.  This is her debut novel and it has gained a lot of praise and interest.  I was lucky enough to hear her speak at a book signing and the amount of research she did for this book was intensive and exhaustive.  Readers will also learn interesting facts about these amazing creatures.  There are plot twists, some of which are telegraphed too obviously but overall, the writing is breezy and this book is delightful, while emphasizing the need for having someone to love in our lives.  This book is recommended for women fiction readers.  

Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner

 

The time is the 1950's, the place London.  Bloomsbury Book Shop has been in existence for one hundred years but it is on the cusp of failure these days.  It is a male-ruled domain and the men mostly stock male authors and topics and men like to read about.  There is Lord Baskin whose family owns the shop and who drops by frequently.  Herbert Dutton runs things day to day and has come up with a list of fifty-one rules that govern the shop and its employees.  Alec McDonough is a young man who is head of fiction, while Master Mariner Simon Scott rules the second floor which is history.  He interprets history as maps and books about wars and battles.  The third floor is rare books and the domain of Frank Allen who is also the man who travels to estate sales and is often away from the store.  The basement is science and its head is Ashwin Ramaswamy, a recent immigrant from India.

There are three women who are expected to be subservient.  Vivian is the assistant in fiction and hopes to be an author herself.  Grace is Mr. Dutton's secretary and she handles much of the bookstore's paperwork.  Evie is the newest member of staff, a recent Cambridge graduate who takes a job cataloging the rare books after she misses out on a job at the university.  

When Mr. Dutton has to go out on sick leave for a month, things change.  Alec becomes the acting head and soon realizes he isn't that interested in business.  Vivian has tons of ideas for fiction and starts stocking female writers and having literary luncheons which are a huge success and introduces the women to famous women authors such as Daphne du Maurier and rich influential women such as Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair the widow of George Orwell, Peggy Guggenheim and Mimi Harrison, an actress.  The women dare to dream of a bookstore that is there for everyone and that encourages and supports women authors.

But when Mr. Dutton comes back, he expects everything to return to the old way.  Disgruntled, the women employees dream of buying out Lord Baskin's shares and owning the bookstore.  But how?  Evie has part of the answer.  She took her job hoping to find a rare book that she knows Frank bought at an estate sale and that has been lost in history but now there is interest in finding it.  Can she find it before someone else?

I loved this book and didn't expect to.  It was interesting to see how a bookstore works but even more interesting to see the women develop and bloom in their various strengths.  Their support of each other and their entry into a world of women that do the same is fascinating.  There are romances but the main theme is female empowerment.  This book is recommended for women's and literary fiction readers.  

Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky

 In this second book of the series Shadows Of The Apt, there is lots of action.  The Wasps of the Empire Of Black And Gold have decided to attack the various cities of the Lowlands.  Two separate armies are formed and each picks a separate city to attack.  One city belongs to the Ants, the other to the Beetles.  Their defense strategies vary but conform to their species characteristics.  The Ants form a single-minded organized battle in which they share a mind that has everyone in constant communication while the Beetles rely more on technology and various inventions to defend themselves against the Wasps.

Another focus of the book is the treatment of those with mixed parentage.  Tynesia is Mantis on her father's side while Beetle on her mother's.  She becomes closer to her father who she discovered in the first novel and takes steps to pledge herself to the Mantis world.  Totho and Salma attempt to spy on the Wasps and both are taken captive.  Totho who has had trouble fitting in at the Beetle world, agrees to stay with the Wasps and invent weapons for them if Salma is released.  Salma, who is a dragonfly prince, organizes a roughshod group of resistance fighters, determined to harry the Wasps and find a way to get Totho back.

This is a very complex series with multiple characters and action taking place in various locations.  I can see that in the future once I finish all ten novels in the series, I may start it again just to be sure I follow all the myriad threads and characters.  The series is unique in that each character's personality and motives, their backgrounds are spelled out and Tchaikovsky manages this balancing act with acumen and strength.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.