We love to hear tidbits about royalty and what their actual interests are or about their real personalities. I mean, what if royalty is just like us? Of course, they're not really and we know it. In S.J. Bennett's entertaining novel, the first in a planned series, The Windsor Knot, royalty is definitely not just like us, not unless we investigate and solve a murder that happened after a dinner party we hosted.
Windsor Castle with the Queen in residence is a busy place, full of staff, invited guests, and other royals. After one of the Queen's dine and sleeps thrown for Charles' benefit, a guest, a young Russian pianist, is found dead in his room. Initially thought to be the result of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong, it turns out to be a case of murder instead. When the direction the authorities take in investigating is clearly off track, the Queen gets involved with her own behind the scenes investigation. Of course, as the Queen, she cannot be seen to be looking into this so she uses her new assistant personal secretary Rozie as her proxy. Rozie is uniquely positioned to help the Queen and keep everything extremely private, setting up meetings, interviewing people of interest, and researching connections. Her military background doesn't hurt either.
This is a mystery in the tradition of the Golden Age of crime writing and it is quite fun. The Queen is constrained and so must direct others to uncover the nuggets of information she's already uncovered and connected to the web of the whole. There are a multitude of suspects, an unclear motive, delicate international diplomacy issues, and a Director General of MI5 who consistently underestimates the Queen as a little, old grandmotherly sort instead of a long reining, fiercely intelligent woman. Bennett's Queen comes off as thoughtful, determined, kind, and diplomatic. She hews to duty but has a firm sense of justice and will quietly sidestep duty if justice requires. Rozie, a Brit of Nigerian descent, is a delight as she settles into detecting at the direction of her boss and into the always on call role of assistant private secretary. There's also a scene where she is a complete and total badass. Woven around the detecting bits are charming scenes from the Queen's daily life at Windsor as she walks her dogs, deals with her staff, and interacts with Prince Philip. The novel is occasionally a little slow moving but there is some good humor and several red herrings to balance the pace. All in all, a clever, fun, and enjoyable murder mystery.
Some books make you feel young. Some make you feel every bit of your age. Some are light hearted and delightful. And some are heavy and darkly depressing. I didn't expect light hearted and delightful from Jean Kyoung Frazier's Pizza Girl given the premise but I didn't expect the heavy, every bit your age feeling either. Unfortunately that's what I got.
Pizza Girl (unnamed until quite late in the novel) is 18 and pregnant. She lives with her mother and her boyfriend and works at a local pizza joint. She is ambivalent about having a baby, is unhappy at work, feels smothered by her loved ones, worries how she is similar to her late father, an alcoholic, and is just drifting through life. She spends a lot of her time avoiding the boyfriend who has given up his college dream to be with her and raise their upcoming child, sneaking out to her dad's locked shed where she sits and drinks and thinks. Then one Wednesday a woman calls the pizza place and orders a pizza with pickles. Our pizza girl delivers this odd order, quickly becoming obsessed with Jenny Hauser, a housewife who seems to be as discontented as Pizza Girl herself. This unexpected attraction to Jenny takes over Pizza Girl's life, as she imagines them into a deeper friend relationship than they actually have.
The angst oozes from this coming of age novel like hot cheese on pizza. It is a character study, ruminative and moody, and there's little plot to hang the story on. Pizza Girl makes mistake after mistake, moping about and refusing to make a change towards claiming her own happiness. Jenny is lonely but that makes it no less odd and slightly creepy that she invites this unknown young girl to hang around with her and to babysit her child. None of the characters besides Pizza Girl come alive at all and since she's such a depressed and aimless character, it makes for a frustrating reading experience although those who like intentionally quirky novels might find it more engaging than I did.
This meme was 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. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.
The book is being released by Grand Central Publishing on January 12, 2021.
The book's jacket copy says: For readers of Station Eleven and Good Morning, Midnight comes an electric, heart-pounding novel of love and sacrifice that follows people around the world as they unite to prevent a global catastrophe.
When dark comet UD3 was spotted near Jupiter's orbit, its existence was largely ignored. But to individuals who knew better -- scientists like Benjamin Schwartz, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies -- the threat this eight-kilometer comet posed to the survival of the human race was unthinkable. The 150-million-year reign of the dinosaurs ended when an asteroid impact generated more than a billiontimes the energy of an atomic bomb.
What would happen to Earth's seven billion inhabitants if a similar event were allowed to occur?
Ben and his indomitable girlfriend Amy Kowalski fly to South America to assemble an international counteraction team, whose notable recruits include Love Mwangi, a UN interpreter and nomad scholar, and Zhen Liu, an extraordinary engineer from China's national space agency. At the same time, on board a polar icebreaker life continues under the looming shadow of comet UD3. Jack Campbell, a photographer for National Geographic, works to capture the beauty of the Arctic before it is gone forever. Gustavo Wayãpi, a Nobel Laureate poet from Brazil, struggles to accept the recent murder of his beloved twin brother. And Maya Gutiérrez, an impassioned marine biologist is -- quite unexpectedly -- falling in love for the first time.
Together, these men and women must fight to survive in an unknown future with no rules and nothing to be taken for granted. They have two choices: neutralize the greatest threat the world has ever seen (preferably before mass hysteria hits or world leaders declare World War III) or come to terms with the annihilation of humanity itself.
Applying to college is stressful. It's stressful for students but it's also stressful for parents. I've been through it not only for myself, but also three times now as a parent. And I think it may be harder as a parent. Of course every school is going to want your amazing child, right? Well, no. And it is incredibly painful to see a college tell your child that they regret...blah, blah, blah. (I still make spitting noises whenever the name of one particular institution is mentioned even though the kid in question is long since over the hurt of the denial.) So those of us privileged enough to have the time and money to do so try to do whatever we can to help our child look attractive to the college of their choice. We harangue them about their grades. We drive them to and from countless extracurricular activities. We lecture them on their social media presence. We take them on college visits. We hire tutors or outside college counselors. We enroll them in SAT/ACT prep classes. It's a lot. But we want them to have their choice of colleges. So I suppose that it isn't really surprising to find out that some parents crossed a legal line to make sure their children got into the college of their choice, as we all saw during the 2019 college admissions scandal. We watched as the highest profile parents pled guilty, lost professional opportunities, were pilloried in the press and public opinion, and ultimately served time. But did we ever wonder at the effect on the children at the base of the scandal beyond wondering how much they knew? Although the parents were ostensibly acting in their interests, the impact on the kids and their lives has been largely ignored. This unexplored angle is what Julie Buxbaum has created in her ripped from the headlines novel, Admission.
Chloe Berringer has a pretty great life. She's the daughter of privilege. She goes to an elite private school. Her mother is Joy Fields, a B-list actress. She doesn't totally fit in at school but she has a fabulous best friend, Shola, who is closer to her than her own sister. She's just been accepted at her dream college, the school she never thought she'd get into in a million years. And the guy friend she's been crushing on forever might just be showing signs of finally being interested. Sure, she isn't a high achiever or have a driving passion or know where she wants to be in five years or what she wants to be when she grows up. But those are minor and her life, on the whole, is truly pretty great. But that whole life changes early one morning when she opens the door to the FBI who are there to arrest her mother for her role in a college admissions scandal.
Chapters alternate between "Now" and "Then," or the door opening and moving forward from that moment versus the school year leading up to the fateful door opening. Both pieces are told in the first person by Chloe allowing the reader to see both her struggles with the admissions process itself and how her parents involvement in the scandal makes her feel about herself. Chloe isn't a stellar student but she's decent. Her standardized test scores are not good and no amount of tutoring has helped her. Her first attempt at a personal essay is dismal. Her friends appear to be sailing through the college admissions process while she hits every hurdle an otherwise wealthy, white girl can hit. The stress, anxiety, and fear accompanying the whole process is incredibly true to reality and made me sad to read about (thank heavens I'm done getting kids through this). The process stress, anxiety, and fear are nothing to the stress, anxiety, and shame that she feels once the scam becomes public though and she has to do some hard thinking about her own culpability and wonder if she practiced willful blindness and therefore deserves some of the public scorn and vitriol directed her way. It gets even harder as she examines the whole situation from the perspective of her best friend. Although they are incredibly close, Shola serves as a foil to Chloe in many ways. She is an outstanding student, black, and a scholarship student at their school. Her family does not have the financial means to fund even the additional legal "leg-ups" that everyone else at the school uses as a matter of course but Chloe still envies Shola without understanding all of the privilege she, Chloe, takes for granted.
As a character, Chloe is complex and contradictory. She is a typical teenager, entitled and a bundle of nerves, a compassionate kid and a whiny, thoughtless brat. Sometimes she can be all of these within the space of a few sentences. The reader alternates between sympathizing with her and thinking, "really? You didn't stop to question any of the odd or off or truly questionable things you were being asked to do?" The way that Buxbaum shows the daily deceptions in this Hollywood family, the importance of appearances, and the way that this has seeped into not only Chloe's character make-up but is also present in the people surrounding her in life, school, and beyond, is quite illustrative. As this premise is clearly pulled from current events, it would be impossible not to see the similarities with the real life college admissions scandal. Mom Joy and the situation itself are large parts Lori Loughlin mixed with small bits of Felicity Huffman but Chloe is her own person, grappling with everything in ways that none of the actual kids seem to have done, at least not in public. Some of what Chloe learns or acknowledges is a little heavy handed at times, although perhaps the obviousness of certain lessons are to reinforce the whole oblivious teenager thing. As for the secondary characters, Chloe tells the reader about their fabulousness and compares herself to them but they are clearly meant just to show aspects of Chloe's personality rather than to be fully fleshed out characters on their own. I do have one rather specialized nit pick as well but most people are never going to notice it.
As the mom of a pole vaulter, the terminology and the look of the sport is all wrong. Again, you could suggest that since Chloe isn't actually a pole vaulter and she's the one narrating, she'd likely get it wrong but I think that's a stretch since she's seeing a picture of herself as still saying she's "spear in hand." And having spent years trying to get good pictures of my kid pole vaulting, the picture as described cannot exist, even if someone was fantastic at photoshop. But as I said, no one else is going to notice that but we very few. It's a clumsy error though and did jerk me out of the story.
There were some clunky bits and a little too much didacticism, but over all, this was an interesting exercise in looking at privilege, entitlement, expectations, and hard learned lessons. If you want to think some more about the college admissions scandal, give this novel a try.
Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):
The Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair
Faces: Profiles of Dogs by Vita Sackville-West
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
Holding on to Nothing by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne
Difficult Light by Tomas Gonzalez
Adults and Other Children by Miriam Cohen
Grief's Country by Gail Griffin
Moments of Glad Grace by Alison Wearing
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Misconduct of the Heart by Cordelia Strube
Search Heartache by Carla Malden
What the Lady Wants by Renee Rosen
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
The Book Keeper by Julia McKenzie Munemo
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
Temporary by Hilary Leichter
Blue Marlin by Lee Smith
Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane
Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
A Short Move by Katherine Hill
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North
The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger
Watershed by Mark Barr
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
The Goshen Road by Bonnie Proudfoot
We Have Everything Before Us by Esther Yin-ling Spodek
Anna Eva Mimi Adam by Marina Antropow Cramer
This Is My Body by Cameron Dezen Hammon
Impurity by Larry Tremblay
The Last Goldfish by Anita Lahey
Invisible Ink by Guy Stern
A Room Called Earth by Madeleine Ryan
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
Raphael Painter in Rome by Stephanie Storey
Blue Summer by Jim Nichols
The Miracle of Saint Lazarus by Uva de Aragon
Red Mother with Child by Christian Lax
The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos
Tamba Child Soldier by Marion Achard
The Girl with Braided Hair by Rasha Adly
The Book of Second Chances by Katherine Slee
Disfigured by Amanda Leduc
Floating in the Neversink by Andrea Simon
Seven Sisters and a Brother by Marilyn Allman May
A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen
Sansei and Sensibility by Karen Tei Yamashita
The Paris Secret by Natasha Lester
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat
I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker
The Hierarchies by Ros Anderson
The Change by Lori Soderlind
The Man in the White Linen Suit by David Handler
I Saw Three Ships by Bill Richardson
A Wicked Kind of Husband by Mia Vincy
Wild Ride Home by Christine Hemp
The Book of Rosy by Rosayra Pablo Cruz and Julie Schweitert Collazo
The Devil to Pay by Liz Carlyle
How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences by Sue William Silverman
The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels
The Bitch by Pilar Quintana
Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon
Continental Divide by Alex Myers
The Road to Urbino by Roma Tearne
The Wanting Life by Mark Rader
Invented Lives by Andrea Goldsmith
Friends of the Library by Susan Cushman
In Praise of Paths by Torbjorn Ekelund
Tea by the Sea by Donna Hemans
Heiress for Hire by Erin McCarthy
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
The Royal Abduls by Ramiza Shamoun Koya
The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline
The Expert's Guide to Driving a Man Wild by Jessica Clare
How to Eat by Thich Nhat Hanh
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
Startled by His Furry Shorts by Louise Rennison
Love and Hunger by Charlotte Wood
Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify by Carolyn Holbrook
You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles
In Our Midst by Nancy Jensen
On the Steamy Side by Louisa Edwards
The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah
The Second Home by Christina Clancy
Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
A Shot in the Dark by Lynne Truss
Unconditional Love by Jocelyn Moorhouse
Along Came Mary by Jo-Ann Mapson
The Big Quiet by Lisa D. Stewart
All My Mother's Lovers by Ilana Masad
The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown
The Moonshiner’s Daughter by Donna Everhart
True North by Beverly Brandt
Betrayal at Ravenswick by Kelly Oliver
Queen of the Owls by Barbara Linn Probst
Wild Dog by Serge Joncour
Meet Me In Monaco by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
Children of Dust by Ali Eteraz
Happily Ever After by Debbie Tung
The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
Her Last Flight by Beatriz Williams
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes by Leonard Goldberg
Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew
The Last Blue by Isla Morley
Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario
Falling In by Frances O'Roark Dowell< br />
The Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart
Yellow Earth by John Sayles
Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
Murder at Archly Manor by Sara Rosett
House of Gold by Natasha Solomons
A Royal Affair by Allison Montclair
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbuo
Death at High Tide by Hannah Dennison
In the Hall with a knife by Diana Peterfreund
Miracle Country by Kendra Atleework
Death in Brittany by Jean-Luc Bannalec
The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis
Things to Bring, S#!it to Do by Karen Rizzo
Bingo by Rita Mae Brown
Down and Out in Bugtusssle by Stephanie McAfee
Sir Philip's Folly by M.C. Beaton
Exit Strategy by Martha Wells
One of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde
The Exact Same Moon by Jeanne Marie Laskas
The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
Slightly Chipped by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone
I'm with Fatty by Edward Ugel
Breakfast in Bed by Robin Kaye
A Beach Less Traveled by John Berglund
Pulling Princes by Tyne O'Connell
Lady Helena Investigates by Jane Steen
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
The Romance Reader by Pearl Abraham
Festive Spirits by Kate Atkinson
The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog by Dave Barry
An Idiot Girl's Christmas by Laurie Notaro
The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai
The Last Leonardo by Ben Lewis
Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier
The Windsor Knot by S.J. Bennett
Admission by Julie Buxbaum
Mutts and Mistletoe by Natalie Cox
The Gifts of Reading by Robert Macfarlane
I've really liked the other Donoghue books I've read so I'm sure I'll be gripped by this story of three women working in a maternity ward in Ireland in the midst of the 1918 Flu Pandemic.
A modern day Dr. Faustus with the added twist that everyone Addie LaRue is forgotten by everyone she meets in her unnaturally long life, this is a big buzz book and I'm looking forward to seeing how I feel about it.
The story of a young girl, duaghter of a married Japanese woman and an African American GI, who is locked in her aristocratic grandparents' attic to hide her from the world and what happens when her older half brother helps her see a world that does have a place for her, this looks fascinating.
Two babies born minutes apart on New Year's Day, one of whom seems charmed and the other missed out (on being the first baby born in the New Year and on the charmed thing), and what happens when they meet at a party on the eve of their thirtieth birthdays. What a cute idea for a love story, right?!
If I had a super power, I might want it to be like the main character in this one, who can bring book characters to real life. It sounds phenomenal, right?
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.
I know we said we didn’t know if there was going to be a 2020 version of this letter but why should you get to skip it just because the year has been hideous? Maybe our rotten year will make your rotten year a little more palatable. Consider it our gift to you this holiday season, or maybe it’s just piling on, but in either case, you’re welcome. Without any further ado, the K. 2020 year in review:
January: T.’s senior season of indoor track was a bust after he injured his leg. We hoped that rest and PT would make for a better spring season. Little did we know. Also this month, we fostered another cat. We are terrible at this as Sammy is now and forever a K.
February: K. was sick. Like sick sick. Was it COVID? Probably not but she didn’t even read for a week so whatever it was was incredibly unpleasant. D. was traveling hither, thither, and yon during this month so he should probably keep his hotel and flight status next year despite the rest of this year. Yes, he’s one of the people who get to board practically before the pilots. Jerk.
March: T. turned 18 this month. Everyone is an adult now, at least chronologically. The statewide stay at home order meant that we had (adult) kids at home again as R. stayed here after her spring break extended to forever and T.’s senior year was just declared finished. K. took the opportunity to inventory the freezers and the pantry. Ask her just how many jars of pickles and varieties of mustard we have. Also, in case you need to know, veggies frozen since 2010 are a little dry once thawed, meat frozen since 2014 is a tad tough, and no amount of partially used sauce from who knows what year in the fridge door will make this dinner taste amazing. But none of the above causes food poisoning. Silver linings, people, silver linings.
April: We had a flurry of activity this month: a pipe burst in the yard, we finally replaced the fence to keep the dog from escaping and visiting the neighborhood when she should have been social distancing, and K. organized field trips to the grocery store for the extroverts climbing the walls while she herself worked on creating a body shaped divot on the couch. She also tried to give the dog a haircut. The result was the doggy version of a mullet. She used the dog clippers on D. with better results. At least he thinks so since neither he nor his Zoom coworkers could see the back. And the culinary experiments continued as we tested the shelf life of Velveeta (less than 3 years, fyi).
May: R. graduated virtually at the kitchen table wearing her jammies, cap, and gown. We hadn’t seen the plumber in a while so it was fantastic to have him here for R.’s graduation (the kids’ shower was leaking onto K.’s car in the garage). And that wasn’t our only water adventure this month. D.’s office in the basement leaked during the monsoon-like rains we had and grew mold on the carpet. D. is allergic to mold.
June: T. had his virtual graduation this month (the wifi died just before they flashed T.’s name on the screen so we just assumed he was listed) and we drove through the high school parking lot to pick up his diploma. It was nice to see he did in fact graduate—see wifi issue above. We practically peeled out of the parking lot to head to Michigan for the summer. W. and his girlfriend joined us up north for a week and life almost felt normal.
July: We spent most of our time hanging out on the island, where social distancing is pretty much our way of life, even in normal years. R. worked at Culinary School up there for another year (all internships having been canceled) while T. didn’t work at all, his job being a COVID casualty.
August: We took R. up to the University of Cincinnati to start her Masters in Architecture this month. Classes were all online but she had access to the studio and shop for her projects. She also got to learn how to parallel park a stick shift on a hill, a dying skill for sure. T. started college from our dining room table this month so Ozzie, like cats everywhere, got to share his backside with yet more classes (he debuted his waving tail and backside in R.’s classes back in the spring).
September: D. lost his mom to cancer this month. Despite that terribly sad happening, we were happy to finally take T. up to Miami of Ohio for a modified college experience. He was thrilled to be in college *at college* while K. and D. were less impressed to hear that he sometimes fell asleep during his classes since he was attending them from the comfort of his bed. They were also baffled by his random corn cob pictures. ::Shrug::
October: T. was sailor of the week for the sailing club and competed in his first college regatta. Mostly they’ve just had practices (and only the one regatta) so we think he got this honor simply for showing up to the lake on really cold days. At home with only pets underfoot, we decided to replace all of the floors on the first floor. Nothing we do goes smoothly and it’s still not entirely finished. Ask about it if you want a rant from K.
November: R. came home this month to bury Needles, her hedgehog. We bought a hedgehog garden ornament to mark his grave and apparently the hawks in the backyard think it’s real because it has moved several times since it was installed. R. did go back to Ohio after the internment and then she and T. drove home together for Thanksgiving. They’ll be home until mid-January when school starts up again. Before they came home, T. got elected Safety Officer for the sailing club’s spring season. It’s exactly the position he wanted—a leadership role without too much responsibility. Aim high kid!
We’ve seen more of the plumbers, painters, HVAC, leak detection specialists, carpenters, and other home improvement people this year than friends and family. 2020 has been an annus horribilis for sure but it’s almost over. Don’t let the doorknob hit you in the a$$ on the way out! As the year comes to a close, we once again hope that you are surrounded by peace, love, and happiness now and throughout the coming year. And maybe in 2021, we’ll get to see you in the wild once again!
This meme is hosted by Kathryn at 
This past week's mailbox arrivals:
