Hotel California by Don Bruns

 

This anthology starts with a story by Andrew Child featuring his character, Reacher, and ends with the title story Hotel California by Jennifer Dornbush.  Other authors include Reed Farrell Coleman, Amanda Flowers, the editor Don Bruns, Heather Graham, Rick Bleiweiss, and John Gilstrap, a nice mixture of well known mystery writers and those less well known.  I listened to this anthology and each story had a different narrator which added to the enjoyment.

My favorite story was 'Try And Love Again' by Heather Graham.  It featured a private investigator who solves a cold case.  The beginning story which was the Reacher one was also enjoyable as he doles out justice to wife abusers and pedophiles.  All the stories have titles that are names of songs on the Eagles' famous album, Hotel California.  There are probably not many who lived through the 70's and 80's who couldn't sing that title song without thinking as it was one of the hits that exemplified a rock music era.  

The editor and author says that he got the idea after twenty years himself on the road, seeing the various hotels he stayed in, some great, some the best (and not very good) hotel a town had to offer.  Bruns is a musician and he would write songs about the people he observed and met on the road.  Now he is also an author and writes short stories about the same people and places.  Hotel California is the first of four anthologies he has written in this same genre.   This book is recommended for short story readers.  

One Boat by Jonathan Buckley

 

The action in this novel takes place in a small Greek town on the coast.  Teresa is a tourist who came here nine years ago when her mother died.  Now her father has passed away and she has come again to take stock of her life.   The first time she came she got to know several of the town's inhabitants.  Xanthe was a waitress in Teresa's favorite cafe.  Petros was an expatriate who had lived in the town for decades and was a mechanic whom Teresa had long talks with as they sat by the coast accompanied by his dog.  Nico was a dive instructor with whom Teresa had a week long affair.  John was another tourist who had come to grieve his nephew and decide if he would take revenge on the man who killed him.

This time life has moved on.  Xanthe has married and had a daughter; she now owns the restaurant she had waitressed at.  Nico has also married and has a child.  Petros has become almost a hermit; he rarely talks to anyone.  His dog has died and he has another.  Teresa seems to be trying very hard to recapture the feelings she had nine years ago but her life has moved on as well.

Jonathan Buckley is an English author and this is his twelfth novel.  It is longlisted for the Booker Prize.  In it, Buckley explores questions such as how do we form relationships with others and do our connections mean the same things to the other person.  Why do we let life push us along without time for reflection?  What is our purpose if any?  I liked the first half of the novel more than the second as the book seemed to get away a bit from the author towards the end.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Devils by Joe Abercrombie

 

Alex is a street thief.  She doesn't know anything about a family if she ever had one.  All she can remember is having to steal to eat, to do whatever it takes to survive.  She is about to be beaten by someone she owes money to when she is saved by a nobleman.  He tells her that he is her uncle and that she is the long lost empress of an empire far away.  Alex cannot believe him but she needs some help so she goes along.

The uncle isn't the only person who believes that Alex is the princess/empress.  She is brought to the home of the ten year old pope and soon she is sent on a trip to her new kingdom with a surrounding of nefarious individuals to protect her.  There is Brother Diaz, a young monk who is put in charge of the journey.  Jacob is a soldier who cannot die and who has taken part in every crusade and military operation for centuries.  Vigga is a female werewolf.  When she lets the wolf out, she will kill any and everybody around.  Baron Rikard is a vampire, incredibly old.  He prefers to remain remote from the battles the group encounters.  Sunny is an elf, the beings that everyone fears and loathes.  She has the ability to be invisible and uses it much of the time.  Baptiste is another woman, one who has been with the group for years and is a pirate and many other things in her past life.  Baltazar is a necromancer who is indigent to be forced into the group.  

The group sets out on their journey.  Not only will they face the rigors of the road but Alex has four cousins each of whom believe they have a better claim to the throne than she does and who want nothing more than to get rid of her once and for all.  As the group moves and faces dangers, they start to form alliances and friendships.  Can they get Alex to her throne?

Joe Abercrombie is known for his fantasy writing although he hasn't published anything in a couple of years.  I loved this book from beginning to end.  Each of the characters is fascinating in themselves and the entire group works like a well-oiled machine to face the dangers encountered.  There is danger and love and betrayals, everything that a reader could want.  The adventures and creatures the group encounters along the way are imaginative and the reader will find themselves holding their breath as each challenge is met. I really hope this book is the first in a series as I'd love to read more about these characters.   This book is recommended for fantasy readers  

The Best American Short Stories 2003

 

This anthology of stories was edited by Walter Moseley who wrote the introduction.  The lineup is full of well known authors.  Contributors include Nicole Krauss, Adam Haslett, Louise Erdrich, Anthony Doerr, E. L. Doctorow, Edwidge Danticat, Dan Chaon, Kevin Brockemeier and Dorothy Allison.  Lesser known authors include Rand Richards Cooper, Ryan Harty, Mary Yukari Waters, Susan Straight, Mona Simpson, Jess Row, Emily Ishem Roboteau, Sharon Pomerantz, Marilene Phipps, Dean Paschal and ZZ Packer.

The story that struck me the most was 'Compassion' by Dorothy Allison.  It is the story of a woman dying and her two daughters who are with her in the hospital.  Also there is the woman's husband, who spent the girl's childhood abusing them and the mother while drinking.  Now he is sober but the girls can't forgive him.  They also need to get him to sign the Do Not Resuscitate order but can barely bring themselves to speak to him.  It is a real slice of life story and one that many families face daily.

I love these anthologies.  The stories are chosen from those printed in American and Canadian magazines.  It's interesting to see what those who are authors consider the best stories and each is different enough that the readers' interest never flags.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Guilty Women by Melanie Blake

 

Falcon Bay is the biggest hit serial on television.  It's been a ratings leader for over forty years and it's still going strong.  Helen Gold has been the star for all those years and they are still writing romantic plotlines for her.  Farrah Adams plays her daughter.  Amanda King runs the show while Sheena McQueen is an agent and the casting director.

But all is not fine.   Amanda loses her job to her ex-husband, who has also impregnated Farrah.  Helen is vulnerable and being involved in two real-life deaths makes her even more unstable.  The show has a new owner and it's unclear how he feels about the show as his wife lost her life onscreen live a few months ago.  The new showrunner has brought back Helen's old lover, both onscreen and in real life.  Can the women continue to make the show a hit while fighting off all the distractions?

Melanie Blake was an agent before she started writing so she knows the world she is writing about.  She specializes in scandalous books with lots of romance and love affairs, along with secrets that can ruin everything if they emerge.  I listened to this book and listening added to the suspense as the plots and counterplots continue to pile up.  This book is recommended for mystery and women's fiction readers.  

South by Tash Aw

 

Jay spends a summer with his family visiting the property they have recently inherited when his grandfather dies.  The land used to be productive but droughts and poor management have made it nothing more than land that has no purpose.  Jay's father, Jack, is a professor and they have always used a manager on the land.  The manager is still full of hopes, sure that with only a bit more work and money, the land can be a productive farm once more.  

Jay is drawn to the manager's son, Chuan.  Older and more sophisticated, Chuan is fascinating to Jay and introduces him to smoking and drinking.  The boys grow closer as they realize a growing attraction between them and soon there is a seduction.  But the two young men come from different worlds and it is unlikely that a relationship between them will thrive.

Tash Aw is a Malaysian author and this book is longlisted for this year's Booker Prize.  This is Aw's third time on the Booker nominee list.  The characters in this book are hard to relate to; there seems to be a distance between the reader and the characters.  Each character is facing the reality that their lives will never be what they had hoped and that creates a miasma of loneliness and despair.  While Jay has his first love, he soon recognizes that it is not to be a lasting affair but a short summer fling.  The theme of loneliness and despair makes this a difficult book to be drawn into but it is recommended for readers of literary fiction and multicultural literature.

The Dentist by Tim Sullivan

 

DS George Cross has the highest clearance rate on the Bristol police force.  He is also one of the most irritating men to work with.  Cross is on the spectrum and that means he is like a terrier with a bone when he is working a case.  He doesn't really care about making friends at work or even doing what his bosses tell him to.  Once he latches onto a case, he will work it until it is solved.

The latest case seems like it will be an easy one.  A homeless man has been found dead, signs of a fight and the victim being intoxicated established.  It seems like a case of two homeless men fighting and one dying.  Until Cross discovers that this homeless man was a dentist before he went on the streets.  And that the man's wife had also been murdered shortly before he fell apart.  Cross's boss wants the easy solution but Cross is sure that the two murders are connected and the wife's case was never solved.  He is determined to solve both.

When Cross first started on the force, he was bullied unmercifully by his superior officer.  Now he finds that the same officer was in charge of the wife's murder and the case had a terrible investigation.  While Cross has no fond memories of the man, he was a competent police officer.  Why didn't he solve the wife's murder?

This is the first book in the DS George Cross series.  George lives with his father whom he gets along with.  He loves organ music but refuses to play for others.  He drives his partner, a single mom nuts and intimidates the new female hire but he does include them in the investigation and works with them.  His partner helps him recognize social clues that would normally go past him.  Readers will be fascinated with the way George's mind works and how he never gives up on a case.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Silver Bone by Andrey Kurkov

 As World War I winds down, Kyiv is being fought over by six different factions.  Regardless of who wins, hunger is everywhere and the streets aren't safe.  Samson Kolechko is walking with his father when a group of Cossacks thunder through on their horses.  Seemingly for fun, they pull their sabers and attack.  Samson's father is killed and he loses an ear.

Now he is rattling around alone in their big apartment.  But the current group who rules Kyiv is starting to requisition furniture and when two soldiers see how big the apartment is, they decide to move in.  Samson doesn't argue as he knows it is useless as they have guns and he doesn't.  He was hoping to let the woman he is interested in move in but he won't ask while they are there.  Samson discovers that his severed ear which he saved can still hear and he soon finds that the soldiers are robbing houses to fund their upcoming desertion.  He goes to the police to report them but is drafted into becoming a policeman himself as he can write and is logical, having studied to be an engineer.

Once the soldiers are arrested, he finds that they are connected to his first murder case.  The clues in the case are a bone encased in silver and a suit that was never made.  While the police are ready to move on, Samson is tenacious and refuses to end the case until he has solved it.  Was a policeman what he should have been all along?

Andrey Kurkov is a well known Ukrainian author, very popular in his homeland.  This book is the start of a mystery series he is writing and was nominated for the International Booker.  Readers will learn about conditions in Kyiv from a hundred years ago and marvel at how similar the situation is today.  Samson is an interesting character and readers will be ready for his next adventure.  This book is recommended for mystery readers and those interested in foreign authors.  

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

 

This novel is a mixture of prose and poetry.  It starts with a forward by the character Charles Kinbote, explaining his relationship with the English poet John Slade who died shortly after writing the cantos that compose the next part of the book.  The majority of the book is after the poetry where Kinbote gives his commentary on the Slade work.

In his commentary, we discover that the poetry, at least in Kinbote's mind, is the story of a king forced from his kingdom and who ends up in England.  It becomes increasingly apparent that Kinbote is this king and that he believes this is his story, as he told it to Slade in the after dinner walks they took.  He believes that he had a great friendship with the poet and his wife but it emerges that the friendship is mostly in Kinbote's mind as is the subject of the poetry.  He writes about the assassin who is sent to kill the escaped king and about Slade's wife who he dislikes and blames for the fact that the friendship has never become what he wanted.

Vladimir Nabokov was born in Russia, spent significant time in France and England and ended up in the United States from the time of World War II.  This work is a sly comedy, a mystery and a history all rolled into one.  The character John Slade is secondary, used only to serve as an impetus to tell the story of Charles Kinbote who is the king written about.  I loved this work and highly recommend it to those searching for an approachable Nabokov novel to start with.  This work is recommended to literary fiction readers.  

Such A Pretty Girl by T. Greenwood

 

Ryan Flannigan and her ambitious mother had moved to New York from Vermont in the 1970's when Ryan was a young teenager.  They shared an apartment with a family that they had met in the summers at the community theatre where Ryan had been born and grew up and the family of Ryan's best friend.  Although Fiona, Ryan's mother, had only been a bit player, she was sure if she could only get to New York that she would be discovered and have the acting career she had spent her life chasing.

But it is Ryan who is discovered.  She is noticed in a restaurant by a woman who runs a modeling agency and after an interview, signed up.  A movie producer sees her ads and thinks she is perfect for the part of a young girl in his upcoming movie.  That movie catapults her into the limelight and she soon has the career her mother had always wanted.  Ryan isn't sure how much she likes it and after some scary things happen, she had given up acting as an adult and moved back to Vermont.  She and Fiona have been estranged for years, Fiona never forgiving Ryan for her fame and Ryan never forgiving Fiona for her poor mothering, leaving with men and not returning, taking drugs, etc.

But now a scandal has erupted.  A nude picture of Ryan as a young girl which was taken for her to give her mother as a gift, has been found in the home of a wealthy man who has been outed as a pedophile.  He has connections to the woman who discovered Ryan and to Ryan's mother, who has inscribed the picture as a gift to the man.  What was their connection?  The press is chasing the story and Ryan has to return to New York to settle things with her mother once and for all.

T. Greenwood is an American author whose work often focuses on events in American history.  In this recent historical fiction, the reader discovers the excitement of New York's West Side and the artists and actors who lived there.  It also touches on the 'me-too' revelations of recent years when men who dealt in corrupting young girls for favors have been outed; their crimes now on full display.  The relationship between Ryan and Fiona asks the question what will ambition do and where does one draw a line?  This book is recommended for historical and literary fiction readers.  

Flashlight by Susan Choi

 

Anne and Serk married in love and had a child, Louisa, but the love didn't last.  Anne is American, Serk is Korean although he was born and grew up in Japan.  He came to the United States on a student visa and after his education was finished, he taught.  By then the two were barely talking, their initial interest long gone.  

Serk agrees to do an exchange to Korea for a year to please his administration.  While there, Anne becomes ill, the tingles and aches she had been feeling a case of MS.  She was pretty much confined to the house so Serk and Louisa explored the land.  While walking along the beach one night, a tragedy occurs.  Serk and Louisa are swept out to sea.  Louisa is found later, half dead, Serk's body never found.

Back in the United States, Anne and Louisa soldier on.  Although no one knows it, Serk had not died but ended up in North Korea where he is imprisoned for the next decades, suffering starvation and beatings.  Louisa grows up and moves out, rarely if ever even calling Anne.  The family is irretrievably broken and separate.

Susan Choi is an American author whose prior work won the National Book award.  This novel has been longlisted for the Booker Prize of 2025.  In it, Choi explores the idea of identity, family, alienation and trauma.  The characters don't necessarily lead a happy life but they come to learn about what is important to them as they live and grow older.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did a great job, switching between chapters and lives seamlessly.  The novel is written in alternating chapters from the three main characters' point of view and it also goes back and forth in time.  A master work, this book is recommended for readers of literary and historical fiction.

Wellness by Nathan Hill

 

They both came to Chicago to start their lives over.  They fell in love across a space as their windows looked across at each other.  Elizabeth came from money, a long line of robber barons and she just doesn't want to be associated with that anymore.  Jack came from the Midwest, growing up on a farm in a community where almost no one left.  But he wants to be an artist and comes to Chicago to learn how to do that.

Twenty years on, little is left of that idealistic pair.  They have a young child, a son that Elizabeth is sure is on the spectrum but Jack thinks is just sensitive and who looks at the world a little differently.  Elizabeth is corporate in a job where she convinces people that placebos work as well as medicine.  Jack is teaching art at a university but his artwork hasn't appreciably changed in more than a decade.  They are about to move into a high end condo that their friend is building and that will take all their savings.  Jack still loves Elizabeth madly but she's not so sure she loves Jack the same way anymore.  As we discover their backstories, it becomes more clear why each is the way they are as adults.

Nathan Hill is an American author whose debut novel was published seven years ago.  This is his second novel.  The first, The Nix, was a major hit and won many awards.  This novel captures the feel of the 1990's and of the present, how we change as we get older and how difficult it is to keep love alive.  It talks about how hard it is to avoid the common misperceptions of the time and how the world changes for everyone.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers. 

Black Wolf by Juan Gomez-Jurado

 

In this second Antonia Scott novel, the wife of a Mob figure in Spain is at risk.  The head of the Spanish mob is not forgiving and when he suspects her husband is betraying him, he sends his assassins to kill him and the family.  They get her husband, but Lola is shopping and sees her killer in a shop window seconds before he fires.  She manages to escape but now Lola is on the run.

Antonia and Jon are brought in to find Lola.  Now that her husband is dead, she is the police and the consortium's best chance to get a witness against the Spanish mob.  But the mob chief isn't playing around.  Since the first killer failed, he calls in a specialist; a killer that never misses.  Known as The Black Wolf, this is a female assassin who is deadlier than a black widow spider.

This is Antonia's and Jon's second case together.  Antonia is still not through with the first since the killer escaped but the Red Queen project can't indulge her anymore.  They need her skills and Jon's to have a chance to break the back of the Spanish mob.  I enjoyed this one and it, like the first, is fast-paced and keeps the reader's interest.  This book is recommended for mystery readers

The Colony by Audrey Magee

 It is summer on a small island off the Irish coast.  Two outsiders come to spend the summer.  Mr. Lloyd is a landscape painter who has come to paint the cliffs and sea.  Jean-Pierre Masson is a Frenchman who is studying the native Irish language and has come to a place where it is still spoken with little English influence.  

Both rent a place to stay and get meals from a family who has lived there for decades.  The father and grandfather have been lost at sea, a tragic yet common end for those who fish for a living.  The household now consists of the grandmother, the recently widowed mother and a teenage boy, James.  James doesn't know what he wants except that he doesn't want his life to be one of becoming a fisherman.

As the summer progresses, the two men find they are at odds.  Violence is common on the mainland and news of various killings and bombings are interspersed with the narrative.  Mr. Lloyd changes his focus from landscapes to portraits of the widowed mother who is in her thirties and believes that he has done the best work in his life.   He encourages James to paint and tells him that he has talent and that the two of them can have an exhibit and that James can come with him at the end of summer and go to art school.  

Audrey Magee is an Irish author whose two novels have won much acclaim.  I listened to this book and the Irish accent of the narrator added so much to the book along with the English and French accents of the other characters.  Her choice to include frequent reports of the violence between Catholics and Protestants on the Irish mainland sets a surreal background to the betrayals happening on the island.  The ending of this novel is one that I'll long remember and her ability to transport the reader to a distant land and environment is to be envied.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction. 

Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter

 

Sophie Fevvers is the undoubted star of Colonel Kearney's Circus.   She isn't a delicate trapeze artist, no, this is a Viking of a woman who loves to eat and who is almost a giantess.  But she has something no one else can claim.  Fevvers has two wings growing from her back so she has a built-in safety device.  She started life as an orphan and was raised and spoiled in a brothel.  But now she is the toast of the Continent and courted by noblemen.

Jack Walser is an American journalist who comes to do a story on Fevvers and see if she is a fraud.  But he leaves that night as another male conquered by Fevvers beauty and unattainability.  He convinces his editor to let him join the circus undercover to follow Fevvers on her tour.  When he hurts himself, he is repurposed by the Colonel as a clown.  

The circus moves from France to Russia and is headed to Japan.  Fevvers is cheered everywhere but there is also the master of the Clowns, the woman who tames the tigers and finds a mate among the circus regulars and the Strongman along with the usual bears and elephants and chimps.  Together they go forth to perform but fate has more in store for them than they knew.

Angela Carter was born in England but also lived for times in Japan and Australia.  She was known for her short stories and novels which won much acclaim.  Her work focused on feminism and used magic realism as a plot device.  Her most famous work was The Bloody Chamber which was a feminist retelling of traditional fairy tales but readers may prefer this novel as an introduction as it is the closest to expected literature of her work.  Carter creates characters in this novel that are intriguing and weaves together subplots to make a story that can't be put down.  This work is recommended for literary fiction readers  

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

 

Sybil Van Antwerp was a lawyer.  Now retired, she lives a quiet life and carries on with her biggest hobby; writing letters.  She writes to her family and friends as one might suspect.  She writes notes to her neighbors when they do something kind for her.  She writes to the president of a nearby university where she audits classes and argues when the audit policy is changed.  She writes letters she doesn't send.  She writes to authors whose books she has enjoyed and has established relationships with some through these letters.  She writes to a young teenage boy who is having a hard time adjusting to life with a brilliant mind who is rejected by his peers.

But she doesn't always tell her secrets.  She has one in particular that will change her life drastically that she doesn't share with anyone.  Her letters are not always kind; sometimes she argues and lectures those who have upset her.  Through her letters we see her family relationships.  We see her oldest friendships and how she threatens it.  We see her kindness in her letters to a wounded teenager and her willingness to do whatever she can to help him.  We see her blooming romances with two different men.

I'm so glad I read this novel.  It has been picked as a PBS Top Summer Book and a LibraryReads Pick Of The Month and I imagine it will get more awards.  This is her debut novel and I can't wait to read others.  I expected a saccharine novel but was excited to discover a novel that showed all sides of a woman who has led a full and interesting life.  I'm even excited to discover that she also lives in North Carolina about thirty miles from me which means I have a good chance of seeing her in person at a book event.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.   

The Space Between Worlds by Miciah Johnson

 

Cara is an outsider wherever she goes.  She grew up in the wastelands, desperate to get out and do something with her life.  She was the mistress of the emperor but that was a perilous position as he beat her constantly, bringing her repeatedly to the brink of death.  When Cara finds a woman dying on the wastelands one day and hears a voice coming from a transmitter, she takes the woman's place, not knowing what she is doing.

What she is doing is being someone who travels between worlds.  A scientist has discovered the travel process and now heads up a massive corporation, selling data to those who want to know about other worlds.  There are over four hundred worlds that can be traveled to, but there is one caveat; you must be dead in the world you are traveling to.

Cara is dead in over three hundred of those worlds and soon is one of the top travelers.  In some worlds, the emperor she knew is in power, in others he is on the outside.  Cara's family is always there but she can not visit them as they know she is dead.  She slides between power plays in governments and soon in the company she is working for.  Can she ever find peace?

This is Micaiah Johnson's debut novel and it made quite a splash.  It was a finalist for the Locust Award and won the Compton Crook Award while being named one of the year's best books by NPR and Library Journal.  It is an intricate work with Cara moving seamlessly between worlds while trying to discover what she wants her life to be and who she wants to have in it.  She struggles with whether she will have a relationship with her family and knows she wants a relationship with her handler, Dell, who she fantasizes about.  The world building is amazing and this author seems slated for fame in the science fiction genre.  This book is recommended for science fiction readers.  

Story Of A Murder by Hallie Rubenhold

 

This book tells the case of Dr. Crippen who was convicted of murdering his wife, Belle.  Hallie Rubenhold is known for exhaustively researched true crime and I'm always glad to hear she has a new book out.  I thought I knew about the Dr. Crippen case but I learned so much.  I always assumed that he was English; instead he was American.  He had a history here of cons and possibly another murdered wife.  That one went under the radar so no one knows but she died out of the blue far from home and family.

Soon after the death of his first wife, Crippen met Belle.  Belle had thoughts of being a singer, preferably opera but refocused to be a musical hall singer.  Crippen never wanted children and convinced her to have a total hysterectomy, leaving her in pain and prone to gaining weight.  They moved to England where Belle had a successful career and made friends with the other stars of the musical revue world.  Crippen did have medical training and at various times he was a surgeon, an eye doctor and a dentist.  

But Crippen had finally fallen in love with his secretary, Ethel Le Neve.  He was determined to live with Ethel and after seven years of a relationship, he decided that Belle had to go.  He told everyone she had gone to America and then after a few weeks that she had died there.  Her music hall friends didn't believe him and were instrumental in bringing him to justice.

Rubenhold covers the lives of all three characters, Belle, Ethel and Crippen.  She covers the months between the murder and the revelation of it, the escape that Crippen and Ethel made and the trial after their capture.  Hallie Ruberhold's work focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth British history, especially of women and social causes.  Her work focuses less on the crimes and more on the factors surrounding the crimes; the lives involved, the investigation, and the effects of the crime.  This book is recommended for readers of true crime.  

Gods Of Howl Mountain by Taylor Brown

 

Life is hard on Howl Mountain and memories are long.  This novel follows the life of the Docherty family.  Rory has just returned from the war, minus one leg.  He lives with his grandmother, the woman who raised him after his mother was sent to the insane asylum.  His grandmother was a prostitute but now makes her living seeing to the ills of the mountain folk.  Rory makes his living running moonshine for the man who rules Howl Mountain.

But that life is tough.  He has to outrun the federal and local revenuers weekly on his runs.  He has to match wits and motors with the other men who want to take his territory.  Falling in love with the daughter of a snake-handling preacher wasn't in his plans, but that's what's happened.

This was my first novel by Taylor Brown but it definitely won't be my last.  I was familiar with the landscape of the Appalachian mountains as I grew up in Southwest Virginia and the first spirits I ever drank was moonshine as my best friend's father got some every Friday night when the paychecks came.  Taylor Brown is an author raised in the South and he gets it right.  There's a ton of difference between reading a book set in the South written by someone who grew up there and reading one by someone who didn't.  This book is raw and tough and it is one of the few that makes me think as a woman that I get some feel for what being a man might be, how protecting his family is bred in the bone and how every day can bring a challenge to his manhood he must rise to.  Suffice it to say, I loved this novel and hope more people read it and discover the author.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

The Love Story Of Missy Carmichael by Beth Morrey

 

Now that her husband is gone, Missy Carmichael finds herself rattling around a big old house by herself.  Her son has moved with his family to Australia so she only sees her grandson infrequently.  She is at odds with her daughter so doesn't see her at all.  Her friends have drifted away over the years, all busy with their own families and careers.

Missy had been a brilliant student who took a First at university.  But she gave up all thoughts of a career when she met and married her husband Leo.  Leo had a grand career, author of many historical books, always off at conferences and book signings.  Missy stayed home, running the household and raising the children, always sure in the depths of her heart that she loved Leo more than he loved her.

But things can change even in your late seventies.  Missy meets Sylvia who knows everyone and is a decorator.  They start having coffee occasionally and soon Missy also becomes close to Angela.  Angela is a young single mom struggling with raising a young son and Missy is delighted to help out.  Soon she also knows many other people who are friends with her other friends and starts to realize that life is not over.  She also agrees to keep a dog for someone who must flee an abusive relationship and soon the dog is one of the joys of her new life.

I loved this novel.  I'm not sure what I expected but I found a woman close to my own age who is rediscovering herself and finding joy in life.  I've been pleasantly surprised after retirement to find a new community of friends who share interests like reading, playing games or working out at the gym.  Missy finds joy in a time of life that she thought would be more and more closed and restrictive and I loved her openness and care for others.  This is a debut novel and I can't wait to read more by Morrey.  This book is recommended for readers of women's fiction.