Thursday, August 31, 2017

Review: The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes by David Handler

Isn't it funny how over time your tastes change? There are foods I never liked as a child that I love now and some I used to like and am less impressed with now. There are colors I like better than I used to, clothing styles I wouldn't have touched with a ten foot pole that I'll now wear. And of course, my reading tastes have evolved too. I started out reading everything. Then I went through a stage where if it wasn't literature (and please pronounce that as lit-ruh-chure and loft your nose into the air as you say it), I wasn't interested. I was a serious reader, you see. Then I went through a phase where I read romances like candy, devouring their guaranteed happily ever afters. Now I like to think I am a much more balanced reader. I want something that is well-written. I like it to be thoughtful but it doesn't always have to be. Most of all, though, I want a cracking good story. That can mean heavy or light, funny or not. But it means a book that keeps me turning the pages, wanting to live in its world (although for the sad or heavy books, maybe not as one of the characters!). And I am finding these across genres. They happen in literature. They happen in romances. They happen in commercial fiction. To my surprise (and perhaps down to my ever changing taste), they happen in mysteries. David Handler's newest mystery, The Girl With the Kaleidoscope Eyes is one such book. After a twenty year hiatus from his Stewart Hoag series, Handler is back with another adventure for Hoagy and his basset hound sidekick Lulu.

Hoagy was once the darling of the literary world, publishing a novel that promised an amazing career. He married a famous actress but when he was unable to write a second novel, he crashed and burned spectacularly. Now Hoagy's divorced, although still close with his ex-wife, and his career as a ghost writer is pretty successful.  But he's still not writing his own novel. His agent offers him a big, developing story as his next ghost project and although there are signs that Hoagy should turn it down, he agrees to it.

Richard Aintree was a famous author who disappeared after his wife committed suicide. He left behind his two daughters, one of whom, Monette, has turned herself into a wildly successful lifestyle brand, married a popular actor from whom she is now separated, and has two teenage children. The other, Reggie, was once a poet of some re-known herself as well as being an ex of Hoagy's, the one to whom he dedicated his novel, his first love. The sisters have been estranged for two decades, ever since their father disappeared. It appears though, that Richard is preparing to surface from his long-time self-imposed anonymity, writing first to Monette and then to Reggie.  The literary establishment wants Hoagy to document this reappearance in a book. Or the whole thing could be a hoax for a host of reasons, perpetrated by a host of different people. Either way, Hoagy and his four legged sidekick Lulu fly out to Monette's house in LA and get completely embroiled in the sensational tabloid mess going on in Hollywood. Monette's husband has apparently gotten his nineteen year old co-star pregnant and it's caused a major media feeding frenzy. In the midst of this, Hoagy's trying to figure out the legitimacy of the letters to the Aintree daughters but his assignment gets completely overshadowed when there's a murder and then even more bodies start to pile up. People are clearly lying about what truly happened and Hoagy, assisted by Lulu, just wants to uncover the truth.

Although this is the ninth in the series, it stands on its own with no trouble. Hoagy and Lulu are fantastic characters and all of the secondary characters are fully realized and totally human as well, flaws and all. The 1992 setting is delightful, as it allows the reader to remember back to the beginnings of personal computers, cell phones the size of bricks, and other nascent technology and Handler does a good job integrating their use into the story, grounding the novel in a definite time period, without being too serious or didactic about the technological advances we've now gone so far past.  His portrayal of the chaos and unreality of Hollywood and celebrity is marvelous as well.  There is a wonderful sense of humor here and it pops up in unexpected places such as when Hoagy dons a light green shirt to match his skin after he'd been drinking the night before or when the literary agent and the producer both retreat to opposite sides of the pool to get better signals and talk/shout on their cell phones. It's not often that I've read a mystery that made me smile like this one did, twining levity and noir together so well. And the ending had several neat twists to it that were entirely believable in the context of what went before. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and might just have to catch myself up on the back list of Hoagy and Lulu's adventures and I certainly hope they will add more in the future as well because this was indeed a cracking good read.

For more information about David Handler and the book, check out his website, like him on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter. Check out the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and Harper Collins for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Something Like Happy by Eva Woods.

The book is being released by Graydon House on September 5, 2017.

Amazon says this about the book: With wry wit and boundless heart, Eva Woods delivers an unforgettable tale of celebrating triumphs great and small, seizing the day, and always remembering to live in the moment.

“It's simple, really. You're just meant to do one thing every day that makes you happy. Could be little things. Could be big. In fact, we're doing one right now…”

Annie Hebden is stuck. Stuck in her boring job, with her irritating roommate, in a life no thirty-five-year-old would want. But deep down, Annie is still mourning the terrible loss that tore a hole through the perfect existence she'd once taken for granted—and hiding away is safer than remembering what used to be. Until she meets the eccentric Polly Leonard.

Bright, bubbly, intrusive Polly is everything Annie doesn't want in a friend. But Polly is determined to finally wake Annie up to life. Because if recent events have taught Polly anything, it's that your time is too short to waste a single day—which is why she wants Annie to join her on a mission…

One hundred days. One hundred new ways to be happy. Annie's convinced it's impossible, but so is saying no to Polly. And on an unforgettable journey that will force her to open herself to new experiences—and perhaps even new love with the unlikeliest of men—Annie will slowly begin to realize that maybe, just maybe, there's still joy to be found in the world. But then it becomes clear that Polly's about to need her new friend more than ever…and Annie will have to decide once and for all whether letting others in is a risk worth taking.

Monday, August 28, 2017

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

What's My Pee Telling Me? by Josh Richman and Anish Sheth
Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol
The Daughters of Ireland by Santa Montefiore
The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman
The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
The Lake House by Kate Morton
Shelter by Jung Yun
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones
The Company They Kept edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Lily and the Octopus by Stephen Rowley
Thousand-Miler by Melanie Radzicki McManus
Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe
Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Hope Has Two Daughters by Monia Mazigh
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter

Reviews posted this week:

What's My Pee Telling Me? by Josh Richman and Anish Sheth
The Daughters of Ireland by Santa Montefiore

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso
To Love the Coming End by Leanne Dunic
The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault
A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe
City Mouse by Stacey Lender
Cutting Back by Leslie Buck
Siracusa by Delia Ephron
The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon
A Narrow Bridge by J.J. Gersher
The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson
The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
How to Survive a Summer by Nick White
Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair
The Finishing School by Joanna Goodman
Meet Me in the In-Between by Bella Pollen
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
The Island of Books by Dominique Fortier
Lights On, Rats Out by Cree LeFavour
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
What Are the Blind Men Dreaming? by Noemi Jaffee
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
The Talker by Mary Sojourner
When the Sky Fell Apart by Caroline Lea
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
'Round Midnight by Laura McBride
The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
Last Things by Marissa Moss
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Civilianized by Michael Anthony
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies
Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki
In the Woods of Memory by Shun Medoruma
Before the Wind by Jim Lynch
Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent
Inhabited by Charlie Quimby
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
One Good Mama Bone by Bren McClain
The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton
The Long Run by Catriona Menzies-Pike
You and I and Someone Else by Anna Schachner
Meantime by Katharine Noel
The Portrait by Antoine Laurain
So Much Blue by Perceval Everett
Good Karma by Christina Kelly
The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber
Mothers and Other Strangers by Gina Sorell
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
Between Them by Richard Ford
Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol
The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman
The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Review: The Daughters of Ireland by Santa Montefiore

I thoroughly enjoy family sagas in books. If there's a family tree in the front to help keep characters straight, even better. So of course I was thrilled to read the first book in the Deverill Chronicles, The Girl in the Castle and it was everything I expected. With the second book, The Daughters of Ireland, now available to US readers, I had to get my hands on it and see just where the story went.

The first novel in the trilogy really centered mostly on Kitty Deverill, whose grandparents lived in Castle Deverill, her growing to adulthood, her choices, her heart, her politics, and her life. This second novel takes a closer look at her cousin Celia and childhood friend Bridie, both of whom loomed large and altered Kitty's life in some way and both of whom were always also tightly woven into the story of Castle Deverill. After the destruction at the end of the first book, cousin Celia and her husband Archie have bought Castle Deverill and she is determined to restore it even beyond its former glory. Kitty is uncomfortable with Celia's plans and ownership of the castle but she is busy in her own life, raising her half brother (Bridie's son) and trying to decide if she can run away to America with Jack O'Leary, the long time love of her life. Meanwhile Bridie has done well for herself in America, inheriting money from a former employer and then marrying a wealthy elderly man who has left her a widow. But she still aches for the son she left behind and for Jack O'Leary, even as her one-time love for best friend Kitty has soured into hatred. As the world changes around them, from the relief and residual sorrow of the end of the Great War, to the financial upending of the Great Depression, and finally to the stirrings of WWII, these three woman, make their way through life, intimately tied to Ireland, the land of County Cork, and the castle in particular as they each learn to live with and accept their pasts.

This second novel is very much an Irish soap opera, not only for the intertwined lives of the main characters but also for the sheer variety of things that happen in the plot, the tragedies and losses, and the character turnabouts that occur to so very many. Celia comes across as a self-centered and flighty character who discovers a backbone, a brain, and an indisputable moral compass. Bridie, who was sympathetic in the first novel, is exceedingly unpleasant here and she is not the only one as Grace, Lady Rowan-Hampton, suddenly becomes rather closer to a villain than she previously was. Jack O'Leary, who is understandably frustrated and angry with life, turns into a cold and unsympathetic character as well. Harry Deverill and best friend Boysie stay rather closer to their characters in the first book and the other secondary characters, including the ghosts, now with the addition of the late Adeline Deverill, add color to the story again. In fact, the Shrubs' situation with Lady Rowan-Hampton's father is a huge delight. This second installment offers far more information on the Deverill curse and the history behind it although it is no closer to being broken than it was in book one. The ending here is full of hanging plot threads which gives it a rather unfinished feel, despite its more than 500 pages. Readers not familiar with the first book can read this one but having read the first book to have a full knowledge of everything that sets up the situations here would definitely be the better option. I didn't love it nearly as much as I did the first novel but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious to see where the final book goes. The third novel of the trilogy is already out in the UK if you just can't wait to see how Montefiore wraps up this sprawling saga.

For more information about Santa Montefiore and the book, check out her website, like her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter or follow her Facebook page dedicated to her books. Check out the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and Harper Collins for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas.

The book is being released by Flatiron Books on August 29, 2017.

Amazon says this about the book: I viewed the consumptive nature of love as a threat to serious women. But the wonderful man I just married believes as I do―work is paramount, absolutely no children―and now love seems to me quite marvelous.

These words are spoken to a rapturous audience by Joan Ashby, a brilliant and intense literary sensation acclaimed for her explosively dark and singular stories.

When Joan finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she is stunned by Martin’s delight, his instant betrayal of their pact. She makes a fateful, selfless decision then, to embrace her unintentional family.

Challenged by raising two precocious sons, it is decades before she finally completes her masterpiece novel. Poised to reclaim the spotlight, to resume the intended life she gave up for love, a betrayal of Shakespearean proportion forces her to question every choice she has made.

Epic, propulsive, incredibly ambitious, and dazzlingly written, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby is a story about sacrifice and motherhood, the burdens of expectation and genius. Cherise Wolas’s gorgeous debut introduces an indelible heroine candid about her struggles and unapologetic in her ambition.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Review: What's My Pee Telling Me by Josh Richman and Anish Sheth

I snickered when What's Your Poo Telling You appeared in my husband's Christmas stocking several years ago but when I picked it up and read it, I found it funny and informative and perfect for bathroom reading. When I saw that Richman and Sheth had a second book in the series, I knew the bathroom bookshelf had found another perfect inhabitant. The format of book number two, named for number one, is similar to the first book in that it is made up of short bits, small tidbits, and interesting side notes. There's not nearly as much on pee as there was on poo so instead of being focused entirely on pee, there are sections on poo (new info) and farts as well. I may be too much of a twelve year old boy but I don't typically find pee as funny as poo (a phenomenon the authors acknowledge) and I truly laughed fewer times than during the first book. In fact, I don't think I laughed until I hit the fart section, which says a lot more about my maturity level than anything else, I suspect. Although if pressed I'd choose the first book over this one, What's My Pee Telling Me? still had some interesting facts (do you know the two smells that urine can have and why or why men have such poor aim in the bathroom?) and makes for informative reading when you are perched on the throne.

Monday, August 21, 2017

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date. I've lost all track of everything given that I just got back from a summer long vacation with family and have bags of stuff strewn all over everywhere. I came home to a house falling down around my ears (kitchen torn apart to fix a toilet leak behind the drywall so kitchen contents all over the house, mold on bathroom ceilings and weeping woodwork from who knows what source, cracked bookshelves that had to be evacuated of their contents, and now a strong smell of burning rubber in some parts of the house which the fire department swears isn't actually caused by anything they can find via thermal imaging camera). And as if that wasn't enough, I had to move the two oldest back to college yesterday as well so I've got the detritus of their leaving all over everywhere as well. So this might be for one week or maybe two; it's even possible it's for the past three. I don't even know anymore!

Books I completed this past week are:

Whispering in French by Sophia Nash
Mothers and Other Strangers by Gina Sorell
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
The Sworn Virgin by Kristopher Dukes
Between Them by Richard Ford

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
The Lake House by Kate Morton
Shelter by Jung Yun
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones
The Company They Kept edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Lily and the Octopus by Stephen Rowley
Thousand-Miler by Melanie Radzicki McManus
Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe
Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Hope Has Two Daughters by Monia Mazigh
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker
Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol

Reviews posted this week:

Make Trouble by John Waters
Whispering in French by Sophia Nash
The Sworn Virgin by Kristopher Dukes

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso
To Love the Coming End by Leanne Dunic
The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault
A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe
City Mouse by Stacey Lender
Cutting Back by Leslie Buck
Siracusa by Delia Ephron
The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon
A Narrow Bridge by J.J. Gersher
The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson
The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
How to Survive a Summer by Nick White
Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair
The Finishing School by Joanna Goodman
Meet Me in the In-Between by Bella Pollen
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
The Island of Books by Dominique Fortier
Lights On, Rats Out by Cree LeFavour
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
What Are the Blind Men Dreaming? by Noemi Jaffee
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
The Talker by Mary Sojourner
When the Sky Fell Apart by Caroline Lea
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
'Round Midnight by Laura McBride
The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
Last Things by Marissa Moss
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Civilianized by Michael Anthony
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies
Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki
In the Woods of Memory by Shun Medoruma
Before the Wind by Jim Lynch
Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent
Inhabited by Charlie Quimby
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
One Good Mama Bone by Bren McClain
The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton
The Long Run by Catriona Menzies-Pike
You and I and Someone Else by Anna Schachner
Meantime by Katharine Noel
The Portrait by Antoine Laurain
So Much Blue by Perceval Everett
Good Karma by Christina Kelly
The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber
Mothers and Other Strangers by Gina Sorell
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
Between Them by Richard Ford

Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams came from William Morrow.

I've read the previous linked novels by Williams so I am looking forward to this finale to the story, this one set in Prohibition era Florida.

The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes by David Handler came from William Morrow and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

A mystery story with a one-hit-wonder author, now ghostwriter, and his basset hound as the sleuths, centered around a disappeared author and his long estranged daughters, this sounds intriguing for sure.

A Hundred Small Lessons by Ashley Hay came from Atria Books.

I just love well done intertwined stories so this one about an elderly woman who has moved out of her house and the young couple who have moved in looks completely and totally up my alley.

A Paris All Your Own edited by Eleanor Brown came from Putnam.

A collection of personal essays on Paris by some of the most popular writers writing today. Need I say more on why I want to read it?

Who Is Rich? by Matthew Klam came from Random House and LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

A novel about an unhappily married woman and a sort of famous cartoonist who are having an affair at a summer arts conference, this should be an interesting look into the business of academia and a fascinating examination of marriage and art. I'm also curious about the strange cover, but that might just be me!

The Art of Failing by Anthony McGowan came from Oneworld and LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

How can you not want to read a book that purports to be about a man, his marriage, and his daily failures? This is supposed to be a comedic novel and I'm always pleased for some levity in my reading.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Review: The Sworn Virgin by Kristopher Dukes

There have been many strong women throughout history but often their stories or circumstances have been lost with time. One tradition of strong women that I had never heard of before was the tradition of Albanian sworn virgins. When a woman declared herself a sworn virgin, she vowed to stay chaste and take on the persona of a man, giving her an unusual amount of control over her own life in the patriarchal society in which she lived. Kristopher Dukes' new novel, The Sworn Virgin, imagines the life of one young woman who takes this vow.

Eleanora is the beloved only child of her father. She frequently accompanies him on his travels to heal others but her true love is art and drawing. She has never learned to cook and keep house, leaving all of the traditionally feminine jobs to Meria, the stepmother who raised her. Her dream is to go to art school in Italy but that dream dies when her father is killed in an honor killing and she is left alone in the world with only her stepmother, living in a mountain village where she has never quite fit in. The two women struggle to survive, coming close to starvation.  In a bid to provide a better life for both of them, Meria ultimately sells Eleanora in marriage to a brutal, local man.  As her only escape from this unwanted marriage, Eleanora declares herself a sworn virgin. This gives her the ability to support herself and Meria, avenge her father's murder, and gives her the status of a man. But her life is not made easier by her new status and she resolves to run away, abandoning the stepmother she now detests to her fate, until she discovers a gravely injured man. Returning home with Cheremi, she works to heal him and eventually falls in love with him, dangerously jeopardizing her sworn virgin status.

The novel reads as if it was two different stories. First it is the tale of a spoiled but strong willed young woman who loved her father and appreciated stepmother, even if she took her freedoms for granted. Then there's the brief bridge of Eleanora's sworn virgin status. And finally, there's a romance that strips all of her hard earned strength from her character. The first section is quite slow and full of exposition. The bridge is short and not fully developed despite it being the most interesting part of Eleanora's story. The third section, focused on the romance, is the least interesting piece of the tale and yet it seems to draw out the longest. Eleanora's character seems changeable, but not in a particularly good way. She goes from spoiled but generally loving, to autocratic and hateful towards her stepmother without even pausing to try and understand the motivations of this woman who has loved and cared for her for almost her entire life, finally becoming subservient and trapped by her relationship with Cheremi. Only in the end is there any glimpse of the forged steel backbone that she wielded so dictatorially over Meria. And although this might sound like a criticism of a strong woman, suggesting that she be softer and more accommodating, it really isn't. She's an unsympathetic character in every incarnation. Her whiplash changes in personality dependent on whether she is wearing men's or women's clothing feels too conveniently symbolic.  Meria too is anything but consistent as a character going from loving to resentful and angry in no time flat.  The romance as a whole is not particularly believable and Cheremi's character is not fleshed out beyond his good looks and his obsession with finding his brother's killer giving the reader very little indication why Eleanora would rush into calling him her soul. Not exactly the story of a woman saved by a man, but not as far off as I had hoped when learning about the custom of sworn virgins, I wished for a grander story for Eleanora and a coming into her own as a woman choosing her own path. Although I did not, others seem to have found this in the book so readers curious about the custom of sworn virgins or life in the mountains in Albania in the early 1900s and other historical fiction fans might want to give this a try.

For more information about Kristopher Dukes and the book, like her on Facebook. Check out the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and Harper Collins for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin.

The book is being released by Algonquin Books on August 22, 2017.

Amazon says this about the book: From the author of the international bestseller The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry comes another novel that will have everyone talking.

Aviva Grossman, an ambitious congressional intern in Florida, makes the mistake of having an affair with her boss--and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the beloved congressman doesn’t take the fall. But Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins: slut-shamed, she becomes a late-night talk show punch line, anathema to politics.

She sees no way out but to change her name and move to a remote town in Maine. This time, she tries to be smarter about her life and strives to raise her daughter, Ruby, to be strong and confident. But when, at the urging of others, Aviva decides to run for public office herself, that long-ago mistake trails her via the Internet and catches up--an inescapable scarlet A. In the digital age, the past is never, ever, truly past. And it’s only a matter of time until Ruby finds out who her mother was and is forced to reconcile that person with the one she knows.

Young Jane Young is a smart, funny, and moving novel about what it means to be a woman of any age, and captures not just the mood of our recent highly charged political season, but also the double standards alive and well in every aspect of life for women.

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Review: Whispering in French by Sophia Nash

Family can be the source of great joy but also great frustration and we don’t always know what we want to do with the history and legacy they place on our shoulders. Sometimes we think we know and sometimes we feel as if we have no choice, even when that choice is a hard and painful one. Kate Hamilton, in Sophia Nash’s new novel, Whispering in French, is faced with just such a painful task when she goes back to France at her mother’s behest to try and convince her elderly grandfather to sell the ancient, crumbling family villa.

Kate is half French and half American and she hasn’t been to France in years. A psychologist, she is considered the practical one in the family despite the shambles her own life is in. She’s left a terrible marriage and her teenaged daughter is estranged from her but it seems her most pressing problem is getting her grandfather Jean to agree to sell Madeleine Marie, the birthright of the Du Roque family for generations, perched precariously on a seaside cliff above a Basque village.  To the locals, although Kate's mother Antoinette grew up there, Kate is not quite considered “one of them” but an American and an outsider. She's not just an outsider in the town though, she's an outsider in her own life, unable or unwilling to look inside her own heart to find the woman behind the professional mask. As she tries to figure out the financial situation and navigate her family, her own guilt, and the bureaucracy of the town, she consults with Magdali, the loyal and trusted housekeeper with whom Kate once played as a child, and counsels the nephew of a long-time neighbor. Major Soames is a former soldier suffering from PTSD and shutting his family out of his life. His conversations with Kate (he's not really a patient) eventually lead her to face her own demons and to risk taking her own mask off.

The novel is told in the first person so that the reader really sees Kate’s insecurities and avoidance techniques. She even addresses the reader early on and acknowledges that this is a story she’s telling, an odd choice since the narration never breaks this wall again. In addition to Kate's telling of the story, there are brief "Whispers From the Garden" chapters interspersed into the narrative and these are focused mainly on an anthropomorphic hedgehog and cat. These chapters feel completely out of place, cutesy, and rather twee, even if the cat is necessary to the plot much later in the book. There are many plot threads here and more are added as the novel progresses but this constant addition of new and unexpected story lines, including surprising revelations about Kate's family, means that several of them are not developed terribly deeply. The main thread, though, is that of Kate's opening up and embracing risk while coming to know her true self, allowing that self to shine. Given the slow pacing of the novel, it takes rather a long time for her to get there, but get there she does. The general story is an interesting one but the ending feels unrealistic and unresolved although interestingly it does circle back to the otherwise seemingly unrelated prologue and the first chapter. Despite these flaws, Kate's transformation and the setting of the novel are both satisfying. I didn't like this as much as I'd hoped (especially as I've enjoyed Nash's Regency set historical romances) but it was a fine way to spend a couple of hours of reading time.

For more information about Sophia Nash and the book, check out her website, like her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter. Check out the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and Harper Collins for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

How to Behave in a Crowd by Camille Bordas.

The book is being released by Tim Duggan Books on August 15, 2017.

Amazon says this about the book: An absorbing, darkly comedic novel that brilliantly evokes the confusions of adolescence and marks the arrival of an extraordinary young talent.

Isidore Mazal is eleven years old, the youngest of six siblings living in a small French town. He doesn't quite fit in. Berenice, Aurore, and Leonard are on track to have doctorates by age twenty-four. Jeremie performs with a symphony, and Simone, older than Isidore by eighteen months, expects a great career as a novelist--she's already put Isidore to work on her biography. The only time they leave their rooms is to gather on the old, stained couch and dissect prime-time television dramas in light of Aristotle's Poetics.

Isidore has never skipped a grade or written a dissertation. But he notices things the others don't, and asks questions they fear to ask. So when tragedy strikes the Mazal family, Isidore is the only one to recognize how everyone is struggling with their grief, and perhaps the only one who can help them—if he doesn't run away from home first.

Isidore’s unstinting empathy, combined with his simmering anger, makes for a complex character study, in which the elegiac and comedic build toward a heartbreaking conclusion. With How to Behave in a Crowd, Camille Bordas immerses readers in the interior life of a boy puzzled by adulthood and beginning to realize that the adults around him are just as lost.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Review: Make Trouble by John Waters

The printed and illustrated version of Water's 2015 graduation address at RISD, this slight work is full of motivational snippets, advice to the newly graduated, and a call to, as the title implores, "make trouble." Most people know of Waters' work either in movies or writing and so they won't be surprised by much of his advice, unless they are surprised at how safe much but not all of it is, nor by his take on the state of the world in 2015, but there are still surprising bits as befits his reputation as a rebel. As a gift book aimed at graduates (it came out in time to give it to all your favorite students moving into the real world), it's a quick and easy read as well as a good reminder to all of us that while we have to live in the world as it is, we should never stop striving to make it a world as we want it to be.

Thanks to the publisher for giving me a copy of the book to review.

Monday, August 7, 2017

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Dress in the Window by Sofia Grant
So Much Blue by Perceval Everett
Good Karma by Christina Kelly
Lift And Separate by Marilyn Simon Rothstein
The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
The Lake House by Kate Morton
Shelter by Jung Yun
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones
The Company They Kept edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Lily and the Octopus by Stephen Rowley
Thousand-Miler by Melanie Radzicki McManus
Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe
Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Hope Has Two Daughters by Monia Mazigh
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker
The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel David Huber

Reviews posted this week:

The Dress in the Window by Sofia Grant
Lift And Separate by Marilyn Simon Rothstein

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do But You Could've Done Better by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell
To Love the Coming End by Leanne Dunic
Make Trouble by John Waters
The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault
A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe
City Mouse by Stacey Lender
Cutting Back by Leslie Buck
Siracusa by Delia Ephron
The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon
A Narrow Bridge by J.J. Gersher
The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson
The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
How to Survive a Summer by Nick White
Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair
The Finishing School by Joanna Goodman
Meet Me in the In-Between by Bella Pollen
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
The Island of Books by Dominique Fortier
Lights On, Rats Out by Cree LeFavour
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
What Are the Blind Men Dreaming? by Noemi Jaffee
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
The Talker by Mary Sojourner
When the Sky Fell Apart by Caroline Lea
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
'Round Midnight by Laura McBride
The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
Last Things by Marissa Moss
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Civilianized by Michael Anthony
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies
Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki
In the Woods of Memory by Shun Medoruma
Before the Wind by Jim Lynch
Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent
Inhabited by Charlie Quimby
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
One Good Mama Bone by Bren McClain
The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton
The Long Run by Catriona Menzies-Pike
You and I and Someone Else by Anna Schachner
Meantime by Katharine Noel
The Portrait by Antoine Laurain
So Much Blue by Perceval Everett
Good Karma by Christina Kelly
The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber

Friday, August 4, 2017

Review: Lift And Separate by Marilyn Simon Rothstein

We've all heard the statistics that 50% of marriages end in divorce and even though that number has never actually been true, its widespread acceptance in pop culture makes us unsurprised when we hear that someone we know is getting a divorce. In actual fact, the statistic is quite complicated and is quite low for people who have been married for a long time (roughly 35 years or more). Perhaps it is this that makes us more surprised when a long time marriage fails ccoupled with the idea that the couple has presumably been through so much and weathered it together. So it makes sense that only something huge like infidelity will drive them apart. This is the case in Marilyn Simon Rothstein's surprisingly humorous and empowering novel of a woman whose husband leaves her after 33 years of marriage.

Marcy and Harvey Hammer have been married for a long time. They have three grown children. Marcy has always tried to be a good, conscientious wife, helping her beloved Harvey with Bountiful Bosom, the family lingerie company, volunteering, and working part time at a local arts charity. She has put everyone else in her life first, only carving things out for herself last. But this is how she likes it; at least this is how she thinks she likes it until Harvey calls home one day and announces that he's leaving her. Eventually he admits that he's been having an affair with a 22 year old Argentinian bra fitting model and suddenly Marcy is living a cliche. As her marriage is falling to pieces, she also has to deal with her own oldest daughter's affair with a married man and her aging mother's devastating fall and sudden illness. She can hardly decide how she's going to handle Harvey and his infidelity when it's all she can do to handle the other curveballs that life is throwing her. While she works through her feelings about her husband and faces the other crises in her life, she meets Candy, a new friend juggling many of the same disasters that Marcy is but whose much appreciated connection to Marcy might be threatened.

The reader can't help but feel sorry for Marcy. She's invested everything in being a wife and mother and all of a sudden she is no longer the first and isn't needed daily as the second. Her search for who she is besides these two things drives much of the novel.  It is incredibly realistic in Marcy's waffling back and forth on whether or not she can take Harvey back, whether she can forgive him, and most importantly, if she wants to do either of those things and that is sometimes frustrating but always forgivable.  Often conflicted about her needs and wants in her new reality, Marcy is a funny and sarcastic character.  She manages to maintain a charity of spirit towards her husband, even when she is most hurting, that is lovely but not too self-effacing to be believed. The secondary characters around her are entertaining, quirky, and realistic and add a satisfying depth to the story. The plot clips along at a good pace and the writing is smooth. There is a lot of humor here but there's also a thoughtfulness and a poignancy about the end of a long marriage that takes the novel beyond the superficial. It is a fast and appealing read as the reader roots for Marcy, wonders just what decision she'll ultimately make about Harvey, and no matter what her choice, watches her become the fully rounded and fulfilled woman she should be. Recommended fun.

For more information about Marilyn Simon Rothstein and the book, like her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter. Check out the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the author for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

How to Change a Life by Stacey Ballis.

The book is being released by Berkley on August 15, 2017.

Amazon says this about the book: A dare between friends leads to startling revelations and simmering tensions in the latest novel from the author of Wedding Girl.

Eloise is happy with her life as a successful private chef. She has her clients, her corgi, and a recipe for the world’s most perfect chocolate cream pie. What more could she need? But when her long-lost trio of high school friends reunites, Eloise realizes how lonely she really is.

Eloise, Lynne, and Teresa revamp their senior-class assignment and dare one another to create a list of things to accomplish by the time they each turn forty in a few months. Control freak Lynne has to get a dog, Teresa has to spice up her marriage, and Eloise has to start dating again.

Enter Shawn, a hunky ex-athlete and the first man Eloise could see herself falling for. Suddenly forty doesn’t seem so lonely—until a chance encounter threatens the budding romance and reveals the true colors of her friends. Will the bucket listers make it to forty still speaking to one another? Or do some friendships come with an expiration date?

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Review: The Dress in the Window by Sofia Grant

History books record the fact that World War II allowed women to enter the workplace, replacing all of the young men who went off to fight in Europe and the Pacific but far less frequently do they address how women survived the hard aftermath of war, especially those women whose husbands, fiances, or sons didn't come home or only came home in flag-draped coffins. With so many men home from the war, women's professional options were limited and what was available was appallingly low paid, even for those women who desperately needed jobs to support themselves and their families.  So many of these all female households struggled to stay one step ahead of their bills. Sofia Grant's novel, The Dress in the Window, is the story of one such family, determined to survive and eventually to thrive.

Sisters Jeanne and Peggy live with Peggy's mother-in-law and Peggy's young daughter in a poor mill town just outside of Philadelphia. Their life is not one that any of them once imagined. Jeanne's fiance and Peggy's husband both died in the war and with their own parents dead, they had no choice but to move in with the widowed Thelma. The three women scrimp to make ends meet as they collectively raise little Tommie, born after her father's death in Europe. The sisters work together, Peggy drawing dress designs and Jeanne sewing the dresses, to sell to better off women in their small community, helping to supplement their meager income. Both of them have a talent for fashion but although they are working together and love each other dearly, they still harbor long standing resentments about each other, resentments that sometimes cause them to lie and keep secrets, both large and small. Thelma also has secrets and as she chooses to divulge them (or not), her relationships with each of the sisters changes. All three women, working together or for themselves, are survivors, having endured so much loss, and each of them wants a chance to chase her own dreams in the world of fashion and the world of fabric but how they each go about reaching for their dreams might tear them apart forever.

The third person narration's focus rotates mainly amongst Thelma, Peggy, and Jeanne but young Tommie has a small bit towards the end as well. This allows the reader to see not only the choices each character makes but to understand those choices and the impact they have on each of the other characters. By moving between characters, the reader can see the conflicts coming long before the characters do and can find sympathy for all positions. Jeanne and Peggy are very realistic as sisters, bound together by a deep love for each other but also prone to jealousy and rivalry. They are quite different from one another and their way of going about achieving their professional dreams highlights that. Calling attention to not only the changing roles of women in the late 40s and early 50s, the novel also chronicles the much appreciated changes in fashion from wartime austerity to abundance and show, a reimagining that showcases not just fashion but an attitude shift of an entire nation. Grant taps into the new spirit pervading the country after the war, branding practical America as innovative and new through the struggles and rise of the sisters. The pacing of the novel is pretty consistent. As each secret is revealed, something else happens to take its place and to keep the reader turning pages.  This is a domestic and family drama as much as it is a picture of society's changing place for women.  The ending is a bit abrupt and the epilogue allows for a glossing over of some of the unresolved plot threads but in general this is a quick and pleasing read. Historical fiction lovers and those with an interest in fashion and the industry as a whole will enjoy the well researched details and the sisters who found a way into this male dominated world.

For more information about Sofia Grant and the book, check out her website, like her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter, or follow her on Instagram. Check out the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and Harper Collins for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Popular Posts