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Maybe

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Have you ever picked up a book and found yourself holding your breath as you turned the pages? That was my exact response to Maybe, written by Kobi Yamada and illustrated by Gabriella Barouch. It can only be described as absolutely breathtaking.

“Have you ever wondered why you are here?”

With an opening like that, readers should certainly expect a thoughtful kind of narrative, but I wasn’t prepared for the depth of emotion that was evoked during my reading. I wasn’t even sharing it with a child, but I can only anticipate an even stronger connection if I was reading it aloud. That, I believe, is the best way to experience this book, because the beauty should be seen and heard.

The fantastical illustrations perfectly complement the complex, somewhat abstract lines of thought in the text. But don’t let that description cause you to think this isn’t a child-friendly book. I believe that kids as young as preschoolers can, and should, be encouraged to think the way this book encourages one to think– to value one’s potential, to strive to make the world a better place, and to persevere in the face of challenge.

There’s a practice I’ve seen posted on social media more often in recent years, one that I’ve done for two of my own children– to have teachers from each year of schooling write a little note to your child in a picture book, so that over the years, the book gets filled with special thoughts and well-wishes only to be gifted to the child at the end of elementary school, middle school, or upon high school graduation. If this idea sounds like something you might want to do, I cannot think of a better book than this to be the one you choose for this thoughtful gift.

Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding: A Royal Spyness Mystery

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5M4B disclosure

Even a cursory glance at the books I review will reveal that I do love a good mystery, but like any lover, I’m picky. I am especially careful of so-called “cozy” mysteries. Sometimes they’re fun and witty, but all too often they are twee and downright gummy with trying to be cute and English or featuring (shudder) talking cats. However, one series that I unabashedly love is Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness series. Set in 1930s England, the books feature Lady Georgiana Rannoch, 35th in line to the throne, in all her geeky glory. Georgie is funny and relatable, complaining about the tartan wallpaper in the loo of her family’s ancestral Scottish castle, and offering an irreverent look at the lives of the nobility, while somehow consistently turning up bodies. She’s flat broke, struggling to survive the Great Depression without bringing open shame on her royal relatives, and her attempts to earn money can be very funny. I’ve read several in the series, and enjoyed them immensely.

In Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding, Georgiana is engaged at last to Lord Darcy, himself an irreverent dark-haired Irish (and Catholic!) lord who’s featured in these books from the beginning and who is as broke as her ladyship. The two are attempting to house-hunt, finding only very depressing and tiny flats as options, when Georgie’s godfather offers his own stately country house as an option. He’s a mountain climber who has been out of country for a couple of years at this point, and in his postscript he wonders if all is well at Eynsleigh House.

Georgie heads down there alone and soon finds that all is far from well! Whether it’s a butler who seems a little too Cockney for the job, a maid who leaves the gas on in Georgie’s room, or gardeners who not only don’t do their own work but also seem determined to keep her away from certain parts of the grounds, Georgie begins to suspect that something sinister is afoot. She’s joined by her mother, the actress-turned-duchness who ran away when Georgie was a baby and with whom she has a somewhat uncertain relationship, her grandfather, a retired policeman who’s very uncomfortable with the upper class,  and her maid Queenie, a strong-willed young woman who is not a great lady’s maid but who is turning out to be a good cook. Many adventures ensue, but all ends well.

I highly recommend this series if you enjoy nice, relaxing murder mysteries—and no, that’s not an oxymoron! With amusing and original characters who have a decidedly unsentimental outlook on life, the Royal Spyness books are a delight to read.

Maybe in Another Life

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5M4B disclosure

Hannah has never quite known what she should be doing with her life. She moves every few years, to another American city, and has sampled life in Seattle, Austin, LA and New York, among others. Her family live in London. She’s just broken up with a married man and is moving back to LA, site of her best friend Gabby, and also the place where she went to high school. Her first night back, Gabby and her husband Mark arrange a little get-together in her honour, and her high school boyfriend Ethan shows up, obviously still interested even though high school was over 10 years ago. Should she go home with him? Or not?

At this point, the novel splits in two, following each of Hannah’s choices and alternating chapters between them. In one, she goes home with Ethan, where they spend the first 3 days mostly blissfully in bed. In the other, she decides she needs to not leap into another relationship and goes home with Gabby and Mark. They stop to view an outdoor art installation, and Hannah is hit by a car, thrown several feet into the air, and wakes up 3 days later in a hospital bed facing the fact that she’s going to need to learn to walk again.

It’s not a new concept, but author Taylor Jenkins Reid handles it well, managing to work all the same main plot points into both story lines, and skillfully weaving them back and forth. Is there really only one right person out there for each of us? Is there only one path to happiness and fulfillment? Hannah’s here to prove that no, there isn’t just one “soul mate,” although Gabby’s life seems to point another way. And it was fun to see how choices played out. Throughout both plot lines, Hannah and Gabby discuss how things were “meant to be,” from losing a pregnancy to finding and adopting a stray dog. The irony is, of course, that readers, with access to both stories, know that’s not true, that there are alternate routes to happiness and fulfillment. So does that mean the force that Hannah calls the Universe and Gabby calls God is making things happen exactly as they are supposed to, even when those things are incredibly painful? Maybe in Another Life plays around with this idea, teasing its readers with it while undermining it at the same time.

The author is playing a bit with the idea from quantum physics of alternate universes, that every time we make even the simplest decision, an entire universe is spun out from us making the opposite decision. At one point Hannah even discusses this, and finds it simultaneously freeing and paralyzing.

Maybe in Another Life is that rare breed–a fun summer read that has some depth and meaning to it, one that might even make you think. After the split storyline, things went a bit slow but soon I found myself caught up in the various situations, events and choices of Hannah’s and Gabby’s lives. I enjoyed this book. It’d be perfect for a poolside or beach somewhere. (Can you tell I am longing for a vacation?)

 Thanks to BookSparks for my copy and letting me join the tour.

The Opposite of Maybe

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5M4B disclosure

Read Michelle’s thoughts first, and keep reading for Jennifer’s thoughts on this novel:

The Opposite of Maybe Maddie DawsonJonathan and Rosie are the couple who have never grown up in The Opposite of Maybe by Maddie Dawson. Their best friends are all married couples who get along great, and their kids are growing up and near ready for college. In comparison, Jonathan and Rosie still have their college dorm chic furniture and working jobs that get them by without having an actual career. As sympatico as they are, there are still areas of stress in the relationship as Jonathan remains the selfish teenage boy and Rosie is starting to look more at the world around them.

Rosie no longer wants to be the butt of their friends jokes as the couple that can’t figure out how to do anything right. She has an interest in other people’s children rather than seeing them as annoyances. And more importantly, she sees the need to take responsibility for the well-being of the grandmother who raised her where Jeremy just sees that she needs to put her foot down and hire a caretaker and be done with it.

When Jeremy’s current obsession – collecting antique teacups – turns into a potential job when a backer cold calls him and asks him to move across country to open and run a teacup museum, Jeremy jumps at the chance and drags Rosie with him. She isn’t quite so sure she’s ready to abandon her life, especially before she’s comfortable with her grandmother’s situation. When Jeremy continues to act like a big kid – not hiring movers, insisting the oven doesn’t need to be cleaned, and more – Rosie has finally had enough. She stays in New England while Jeremy moves across country.

Eventually, Rosie realizes that she’s accidentally pregnant – that phone call about the museum that interrupted things was a real doozy – and she works to put her life back together. She needs to decide if she’s going to get back with Jeremy, where she wants to live, what her relationship is with the young man who’s living with her grandmother helping her out, and more.

The Opposite of Maybe is a coming of age novel for a woman who should have come of age years ago. This is a light read, even given the somewhat heavy topics of unexpected pregnancy and end of life care that are addressed in it. There are many moments of unexpected humor that make it more enjoyable, but I still felt as though Rosie were a teenager still waiting for everything to go perfectly and whining when it didn’t. The fact that she was in love with Jeremy and had a successful relationship with him made it that much harder to like her in parts of the book, but she definitely has redeeming qualities.

The main characters all have fairly messed up lives from Soapie – Rosie’s grandmother who took her in after her mother died but never wanted to be a grandmother – to Tony – the many who is helping Soapie in home and is in the midst of an ugly separation. Their secrets and issues all come out throughout the course of the book, and in some cases I simply want to shake them silly until they simply grow up and do what is so obvious needs to be done instead of hiding from the issue.

The Opposite of Maybe is a great book to pick up when you’re heading to the beach once the weather finally warms up. It isn’t deep, the characters are memorable enough that you can keep track of who’s who, and the plot and subplots aren’t overly complex. You can easily put it down and pick it back up again without losing your place or the rhythm of the book.

Written by 5 Minutes for Mom contributor Michelle who would definitely be one of the friends giggling at the “Rosie and Jonathan Show” depicted in the book. She laughs at her own life, however, on her blog Honest & Truly! and you can follow along with her on Twitter where she is also @HonestAndTruly.

JENNIFER

Rosie is 44 and pretty settled with her life. She lives with her longtime partner, never having bothered to marry or have children. Life might feel a bit stale and routine, but it’s good.

The opening scene of The Opposite of Maybe: A Novel is full of foreshadowing. She and Jeffrey are “in media res,” when they are interrupted. Due to that there is a birth control fail, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happens to Rosie’s comfortable easy life.

I was a bit turned off by the book literally starting off with a bang, but like I said, I saw the place for it. It allowed the author to show and not tell. It wasn’t even all that explicit, but just seemed odd to open the book and read that right off the bat.

I read another novel by Maddie Dawson The Stuff That Never Happened years ago and really enjoyed it, which is why I turned to this novel. I didn’t like it quite as much, but Dawson did paint enjoyable, unique, and memorable characters.

Someday Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham

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someday someday maybeSomeday, Someday, Maybe: A Novel gives us a glimpse of a woman in her 20’s trying to make it as an actress in New York City. Franny Banks gave herself three years to give acting a try. When she realizes that her deadline is almost up, she entertains the idea of quitting. Of course, she also entertains the idea of extending her deadline or relaxing her standards: Does one commercial count? What about getting an agent?

The 90’s setting was fun, as was the “workplace” setting of an actress trying to make it, be it at acting workshop, an audition, on set, in an agent’s office, or working the part-time job that pays the rent.

And of course, there’s the love angle. The men in Franny’s life include her on-again off-again boyfriend (the right guy, but the wrong timing); the actor; the sweet friend. These characters are all fully developed, and add to the story, as do her roommate and best friend Jane, her father — who she mostly communicates with via answering machine businesses — and the actors and others in showbiz.

This is a story of dreams. What does it cost to pursue a dream? What does it take to catch it? We root for these supporting characters, really everyone, since there are not any purely “bad guys,” but this is really Franny Banks’ story.

Someday, Someday, Maybe is written by Lauren Graham, the actress known for Parenthood and Gilmore Girls. For some, this will be a draw (like it was for me), and for others, you might poo-poo the idea of another “celebrity author.” If you are a fan of the self-deprecating yet self-aware witty banter that Lorelei Gilmore was known for, I think you’ll also like Franny Banks. This novel was a quick, funny, light, warm-hearted read — a great debut.

Maybe This Time

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Maybe you’ve read a book written by Jennifer Crusie before, or even one that she’s collaborated with other authors on, so you won’t need to me to tell you much about her style or wit. Or maybe you’re like me, somehow unaware of any of her previous novels, and her new book Maybe This Time might be your introduction to her work. Maybe you’ll chuckle as much as I did, and find yourself remarking that this is like no other ghost story you’ve read before.

Andie Miller, whose full first name is the beautiful and unique Andromeda, opens the story as she visits her ex-husband’s law office to return an entire decade’s worth of alimony checks. Her short marriage to the uber-successful, hard-working North Archer feels like a lifetime ago, and the swirl of emotions that surrounded that time has given way to a calmer, more rational-feeling life now as she prepares to plan a second marriage to a very stable, very “genial” man. (Crusie’s perfect word choice, not one that I can lay claim to.) Although Andie may not be willing to admit it, even to herself, there is a whole lot of unspoken business between her and North, and the same can be said of North’s perspective, as well.

Somehow, in the course of the few minutes in which she planned to forever sever their connection, Andie finds herself agreeing to help North with a family problem. Two children of a distant cousin are in need a live-in nanny at the old family house that was brought to southern Ohio from England in the nineteenth century. The children have driven off several nannies so far, and there’s something just odd about the whole situation. North asks for a month of Andie’s assistance as a personal favor, and for reasons she doesn’t fully understand, she agrees. The story that follows presents a creepy house full of secrets, many of which Andie cannot conceive of being real, along with an endearing story of a woman intent on reaching two children who are in desperate need of some normalcy and love.

I didn’t think much about it when I packed this novel in my bag for a family camping trip, but when I reflected upon it, I realized that perhaps a ‘ghost story’ wasn’t the best choice to read whilst living outdoors for a weekend. I’m happy to report that while a bit suspenseful, this ghost story never terrified, but did in fact make me laugh more than once. I quickly figured out that I like Crusie’s wit and way of making characters’ words and thoughts sound so very realistic. A bit of a love story mixed with an old house, a few angry ghosts and a couple of surly (understandingly so) children make for an entertaining novel in Maybe This Time.

Dawn’s hands may very well be holding a book at this moment. Or maybe they’re tapping away on the keys of her netbook as she blogs away at my thoughts exactly.

Hyphenated Relations

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5M4B disclosure

Sam Daly is a widow whose husband died only a few years into their marriage, killed in a car crash with his mother on their way home from a Mother’s Day outing. In her grief she initially ignored her father-in-law, Harold, but now he’s back in her life and with a new love, Marcie. Sam is invited to celebrate their engagement and meet Marcie’s four children at a barbecue. At first Sam doesn’t want to be involved at all. She’s used to being alone and cynical. But she ends up going to the barbecue simply because one of Marcie’s children stalks her after work and approaches her to tell her not to come.

Marcie’s four children each had different fathers. Marcie has been widowed four times when she meets Harold, but she’s no Black Widow–each of her husbands died from natural causes. There’s Jeremy, the eldest, a bundle of insecurities masking themselves in annoying and toxic statements. Colin’s father made good money and left some in a trust for him, so Colin lives in a beautiful house and plays video games all day, rarely venturing outside. Miguel, the youngest, lost his father at the age of 2. A sweet young man, he struggles with trusting relationships will last.

Then there’s Sadie, who joined the family last but is only a few months younger than Jeremy–her father married Marcie when Sadie was 13. Sadie loves to win, loves to be the puppet-master over her brothers. What Sadie wants, Sadie gets. And Sadie wants this marriage called off.

Sam reluctantly comes to find herself rooting for Marcie and Harold and their newfound happiness. Marcie is warm and ebullient, maybe a little too much into silent retreats and fire ceremonies, but her genuine compassion and interest reach into Sam’s broken, frozen heart. All too soon, Sam realizes that if this marriage is going to happen, she is going to have to actively fight. But Marcie, for all her rosiness of outlook and habit of giving her children a lot of power over her life, proves to be surprisingly clear-eyed about them, with a surprising twist that leads to an ending that, while not stereotypical happily-ever-after, is very satisfying.

Hyphenated Relations is a fun read. Sam is likable and relatable, and the story itself is often rather humorous. On top of that, the book deals deftly with the concepts of grief, family, and the importance of relationships. Highly recommended.

Central Places

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Audrey Zhou hated growing up in small town Illinois. She hated being one of a little handful of non-white students at her high school, hated how her parents were thoroughly immigrant Chinese, hated how her mother seemed to expect Audrey to fulfill all of her mother’s own unrealized dreams, and conform to unrealistic expectations. She couldn’t wait to get out of there. Once high school was over, she spent one last summer hanging out with the boy she’d been crushing on for years, and then sped away. Now she lives in New York. She’s successful, a sales rep at a high end magazine, with a gorgeous fiancé whose parents not only adore her, but own homes in upstate New York and are helping them buy a brownstone.

Her father is having a relatively minor medical procedure and asks his only child to come. Audrey’s fiancé is up for a week in Illinois, so what can she do? Reluctantly they go for what ends up being a life-shattering week, one in which Audrey is forced to examine her conclusions and view her origins in a fresh light.

Central Places is at its core a coming-of-age novel–although not in the way that’s usually meant. It’s really about that moment in young adulthood when we have enough distance to look back at our childhoods and our parents and see them whole, and see that (in most cases) our parents were never as powerful nor as impossible as we believed them to be, and our circumstances were hard but maybe not as unique as they seemed at the time. Delia Cai does an excellent job of showing a young woman going through these realizations. Audrey is relatable, with plenty of all-too-realistic blind spots about her own reality, and a strong arc of growth. A timely and well-written story.

Behind Her Lives

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5M4B disclosure

Deven is already having a rough day when she opens the door to two policeman asking her to identify the body of her sister Kennedy. Deven’s convinced they’re mistaken–her sister doesn’t use drugs. But the photo she’s shown leaves her uncertain. It’s not her sister, but…maybe? They do look alike, if her sister hadn’t had plastic surgery or insisted on always having a weave. Who is this woman? Deven’s on-again-off-again boyfriend isn’t much help, leaving her alone to deal with her emotions and suspicions.

Deven can’t rest until she figures out what’s going on. She and Kennedy share a complicated history. Born of a brief affair between Deven’s mother and another man, Kennedy never quite fit into the family, and at the age of 12 left to live with her father and his new girlfriend. But she came back at 18, and she and Deven have become close. Haven’t they? As Deven delves deeper into Kennedy’s life, she keeps coming up with more questions instead of answers. One thing is certain: she is no longer sure how well she knew Kennedy.

Behind Her Lives is a gripping suspenseful novel, full of twists and turns. I have to admit I did not see the major reveal coming, but it was really satisfying. This book has big underlying themes–family history and trauma, childhood sibling taunts remembered into adulthood, grief–yet the story itself keeps you turning pages till the end. A great read.

The Drowning Sea

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5M4B disclosure

Maggie D’Arcy and her daughter Lilly, both from Long Island, are spending the summer with Maggie’s Irish professor boyfriend Connor and his son, on a small West Cork peninsula that boasts a tiny village and an Anglo-Irish mansion on the cliffs. The village is charming but the mansion, brooding over the town, feels haunted by memories–and maybe even actual ghosts, as Maggie spots a figure in white through a window on the top floor.

Maggie is a former homicide detective, so although she has no jurisdiction in Ireland, she can’t help being more than interested when a body washes up. Strangely, an autopsy shows that the man, a Polish construction worker who was well known in the community, had died 4 months earlier when he disappeared. The police are reminded of a similar case that occurred several years earlier. Meanwhile, Lilly has been spending lots of time with the victim’s younger brother. He seems a good lad, but Maggie’s worried about her daughter, and about the dark undercurrents of the seemingly idyllic place.

The last descendant of the family who owned the mansion is now a painter living in a cottage under the shadow of the family’s former wealth. She tells Maggie she is haunted by memories of events that happened when she was a child. Could Maggie help her find out the truth? And will those former events shed light on current problems?

The Drowning Sea is actually the third Maggie D’arcy book, but the first one I’ve read. It stands alone just fine, although it references events from other books. Maggie is a sympathetic character as she finagles living with a new lover and his son while also guiding a teenage daughter in love, dealing with a new culture and an uncertain future, and solving a crime! It’s a lot! This is a police procedural with plenty of character development, and I really enjoyed it! I’m looking forward to adding the previous 2 books in the series to my library, and hope to see more of Maggie in the future.

In the Aftermath

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5M4B disclosure

April 2008. Julia Herron–Jules to her friends–loves her life. She and her husband, David, live in a small Maine town with their middle-school aged daughter, and together they run an artisan bakery. It’s Jules’ dream, and she loves being the baker, going in early mornings, elbow-deep in flour, making artisan pastries and breads. David gets their daughter Rennie off to school in the mornings, their bond strong. He also handles the finances, and is the process of expanding the bakery to include a cafe.

On this particular morning, Rennie’s mad at him and mad at the world. Jules, at work, notices that the contractor for the expansion has quit showing up. David has called and texted a close friend Charlie to meet him; he has something he wants to talk about, but now he’s completely disappeared. All 3 are devastated when a note is found at the beach with David’s clothes–he’s committed suicide. In the aftermath, it’s found that he carried enormous debts, keeping Jules in ignorance of this.

Two and a half years later, everyone is still dealing with the fall-out. Jules lost the bakery and now works there as a employee, frustrated by her boss’ cost-cutting, lack of vision, arrogance, and misogyny. She continues to be furious at David. Charlie is still beating himself up for missing his closest friend’s texts and calls. Rennie is convinced that her father’s suicide was all her fault. Denise Healey, the policewoman who responded to the incident, is also beating herself up. She catches sight of Rennie at her son’s high school, and the girl’s palpable aura of sadness catches at Denise. Denise was going through her own trauma at the time, and she didn’t handle the investigation well. Now, maybe, she has a chance at a redo. Can she find out more of what drove David to suicide? Meanwhile, the young banker who first kept approving loan after risky loan, and then finally began to call the loans in knowing it would ruin David, is struggling with his own guilt.

In the Aftermath is a thoughtful, character-driven novel. It’s a novel about learning to forgive oneself, learning to move on after grief, and truly seeing those around us. I hope I haven’t made it sound like a depressing novel because it isn’t, although it’s dealing with hard things. How we live and the choices we make have consequences for those around us, and this novel takes a long, hard look at that. Deeply depressed people may feel the world and those they love would be better off without them, but this novel proves once again that that is simply not true. I also enjoyed Jane Ward’s reflective look at the world of the financial crash of 2008 as seen through the eyes of several people in one small town. Highly recommended.

Purchase Links:Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound
Author Links:website, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter

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People We Meet On Vacation

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Emily Henry’s first adult contemporary romance novel Beach Read was a huge hit last year, and one of my favorite books of the year. So when NetGalley offered her latest novel, People We Meet On Vacation, I jumped at the chance. The friends-to-lovers trope is turned on its head and I loved every minute of it.

Poppy and Alex have been best friends since freshman year of college. They are polar opposites – Poppy is loud, outgoing, and dresses in crazy outfits, while Alex would rather read a book than go to a theme party, and sees nothing wrong with the khakis Poppy is constantly belittling. Poppy lives to travel and see the world, and drags Alex along on her adventures each summer, until the summer trip to Croatia, when Something Happens that means they don’t speak for two years.

The chapters alternate between present day, where Poppy lives in New York and works at a travel magazine as a writer, and has travelled the world, both with and without Alex, who is a teacher at the same small town high school Poppy attended. At the start of the novel we know that Something has happened between she and Alex, and the alternating chapters flash back to summers past, moving toward the Something.

The story is told from Poppy’s first person point of view, so while we get glimpses of how she really feels about Alex, his feelings aren’t really clear until later on.

While the dialog is way too witty to be realistic, I related to the in-jokes that develop on each trip they take, and loved how they took care of each other in their times of need. They both have issues from their past that get in the way of them giving in and admitting their feelings.

Content warning – there is one somewhat steamy scene, and a few others that are less so. I wouldn’t exactly call it an open door romance, but it’s not really closed either. Maybe ajar?

I really loved People We Meet On Vacation and recommend it to anyone who likes romance, travel to both little- and well-known locations, and characters who are fun to read about.

Love and Death Among the Cheetahs

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5M4B disclosure

My favorite clumsy royal is back! Lady Georgina Rannoch, who is something like 35th in line to the throne, has finally married her love Darcy in this 13th installment of the delightful Royal Spyness series set in 1930s England. (linked to my review) Georgie, whose deadpan humor and predilection for getting herself into scrapes makes the series such a delight, is surprised and happy when Darcy announces he’s taking her to Kenya for their honeymoon. She is asked by Queen Mary to keep an eye out for the presence of one Mrs. Wallis Simpson, who seems to have such a hold on the heir to the throne, but other than that, what could go wrong?

Well, it is a murder mystery. The duo endure a luxurious yet still harrowing trip by tiny plane and boat to Nairobi, then head up to Happy Valley. This gorgeous location is populated by English expatriates behaving badly, complete with wild parties full of drink, drugs and wife-swapping, and the ensuing feuds and bad blood between all represented. Georgie, who tends to be a bit of an innocent, is shocked, especially when one of the community’s leading lights make a play for her–even though she’s on her honeymoon. She’s also a bit bemused by the habit of her compatriots to discuss their African staff in front of them, as if a darker skin color denoted deafness. (Aside: I appreciated the author trying to be true to her time, no matter how offensive such things are)

Darcy and Georgie leave a wild house party early and are headed home in the dawn light when they find a car blocking a mountain road. Following vultures, they discover the body of one of the worst offenders. Although they are quite sure he wasn’t killed by a lion, everyone else seems to want to close the case quickly under that assumption. They have to deal with incompetent government officials, hysterical former mistresses, and more. It soon becomes apparent that many people had motives for wanting him dead, and that the killer may be willing to kill again.

Love and Death Among the Cheetahs is a solid addition to the series. Like everyone else in college in the late 80s, I spent several years obsessed with Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham, and it was fun to get glimpses of their real-life characters as background players to Georgie and Darcy’s adventures. Georgie tries to act the sophisticate with very limited success, which is always amusing, but it’s not as funny as some of the earlier books. Still, I found it very enjoyable, and a great summer read.

New Kids’ Books from Laura Gehl

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5M4B disclosure

Laura Gehl is a prolific children’s author, and this spring saw the release of four new books from her for children of various ages. From toddlers to young elementary school kids, these books offer encouragement and understanding and make for lovely read alouds with the little ones in your life.

For the youngest explorers, Baby Oceanographer and Baby Astronaut are sturdy board books in the “Baby Scientist” series that give simple introductions to each career experience. Caregivers can share new vocabulary with toddlers and talk about the sky and the ocean as places that grown-ups can explore in their jobs. Both books feature adorable illustrations by Daniel Wiseman.

Kids will certainly giggle at just how far the story goes in Gehl’s Dibs!, with illustrations by Marcin Piwowarski. Big brother Julian is in the practice of calling ‘dibs’ on lots of things, from star-shaped cookies to astronaut costumes to his favorite solar system plate, and his baby brother Clancy is always paying attention. When it comes time for Clancy’s first word, it’s no surprise. “Dibs!” But when things start to get out of hand, Julian is shocked how everyone is responding to Clancy’s calling dibs on just about everything. What will Julian do when Clancy goes too far? As in to outer space?? This silly book of sibling rivalry approaches a real feeling for kids in a way that keeps them laughing.

In Except When They Don’t, with illustrations by Joshua Heinsz, many activities are described with pictures showing characters engaging in what traditionally might be seen as ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ clothing, hairstyles, and behaviors. After a few pages of this, the idea is presented that some kids don’t follow those strict rules. Perhaps boys like to wear pants with flowers on them and dance, or maybe girls like to play football. I like the encouragement here for kids to follow what they like to do, regardless of their gender, but I do wish there was less emphasis on the girl vs. boy categories to allow for the possibility of more fluid gender identities. Still, this is a good start for children who already have ingrained ideas about what girls/boys are supposed to do. The illustrations are full of diversity in characters, and they’re bright and modern, with a realistic feel.

If you’re a fan of Laura Gehl’s work, be sure to check out any of these four new releases!

The Lost Vintage

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5M4B disclosure

Kate’s roots lie in the verdant wine-country of Bordeaux, but she’s avoided the area for years. Her mother left, and raised Kate in California. Kate returned as a college student, fell in love with a neighbor boy, and broke his heart when she returned to San Francisco. Ten years later, she’s a sommelier in an exclusive Bay Area restaurant, and studying for the prestigious, and monstrously difficult, Master of Wine exam. She returns to Bordeaux, staying at her ancestral home with her cousin and his wife Heather (an American who was also a Study Abroad student with Kate) for les vendages (the grape harvest) and a chance to study the local white wines. When Heather enlists her to help clean out centuries worth of junk in the cellar, Kate finds a hidden bricked off portion, containing a wealth of rare wines and a cot. It looks like maybe people were hidden there. But she also finds evidence of a long-lost aunt, her existence hidden away by the family like one of whom they are deeply ashamed. What is the truth of this part of the world, which was controlled by the Vichy government during WWII? Were the family Nazi collaborators?

Meanwhile, the reader is privileged to access a diary left by this lost aunt, Hélène. We follow her ambitions, her desire to become a scientist, her secret application of fumigation to save the family’s prized vines, her growing dismay with the war, and so on.

The timeline of the novel switches back and forth, to the present, where rumors have spread that Kate’s back to look for the highly-valued wines the family produced before the war, Les Gouttes d’Or (drops of gold). Kate’s ex-fiance Jean-Luc has a new girlfriend who’s snooping around. Kate isn’t sure she can handle any more surprises, but she’s dutifully (and secretly) cataloguing the wines she’s found, while dealing with some very mysterious family politics.

The Lost Vintage is getting a lot of hype, and it deserves it all and more. It’s a very well-done novel, with a gripping story that addresses the part of French history that many have desperately tried to forget. Although it seems everyone claims their family were part of the Resistance, some had to have joined the other side, right? Kate, and Heather, and Jean-Luc, and even Hélène will draw you into their world, and you’ll be sorry when you have to leave. Although I have tagged it under historical fiction because of those diary sections, it’s really a novel about how our family’s past affects our present, and how we handle learning about their lives, seeing them as complex people facing nuanced situations. I really enjoyed this book! You won’t want to miss it. Highly recommended!

 


 
Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
 
Author Links: Website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest

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True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness by Christine Lahti

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5M4B disclosure

I have always loved the actress Christine Lahti. I couldn’t tell you why. It’s not that she was in one of my favorite all time movies or television shows, but I felt like I appreciated her body of work, and so if she had a guest arc on a show or was in a movie, it was a definite selling point for me. That was one of the two things that caused me to jump on the blog tour for her new book True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness. The second was the subtitle “a feminist coming of age.”

Sending a daughter off to navigate adulthood has had me thinking a LOT about feminism (said daughter is a sophomore at University of Michigan, where Lahti also attended. Maybe that’s another reason I like her. Go Blue!). She is a proud feminist, and though I’ve always believed a woman should be able to do anything a man can, like many women of my generation, I’ve shied away from the f-word (both of them, honestly). My daughter sent me a text last month, and said, “Do you call yourself a feminist,” and I could answer “yes” without giving it a thought, but five years ago, my answer might have been different. Lahti talks about this current generation of young women in one of her essays, and how she — an old hippie feminist — had a hard time understanding some of their choices at first. But she also shares the same awakening to it through the eyes of her young adult daughter.

In addition to motherhood, Lahti’s essays also touch on mental illness, marriage, her career (“What I Wished I’d Known about Love Scenes” among other things), self-doubt, aging, and that “unreliable” memory. She openly cops to the fact that she might not remember everything exactly right, but it’s her story and her memories.

This is a frank book. Lahti openly (and with colorful language) discusses her free love years, her indignation over several issues, family dysfunction, and the injustices that she personally and women in general have historically faced and continue to deal with, but this book is not a rant. It’s more of a riot.

I had forgotten that Christine was in a show I truly enjoyed, Chicago Hope, and she even won a Golden Globe for her role (when will that show be available to stream?). After reading this book, I now have several movies on my to-be-watched list so that I can enjoy more of her body of work.

You can purchase and find out more at the HarperCollins site. You can also follow the author on twitter @christinealahti.

Woman in the Window

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Anna Fox is the Woman in the Window. She is trapped her home, suffering from agoraphobia after an incident (that is revealed when the time is right). She watches her NYC neighbors through the window, sometimes using the lens on her camera to get a better look. She misses her old patients, who she can’t see for obvious reasons, and she misses her family. She helps people in the online agoraphobia community going by the screen name thedoctorisin, and her therapist comes in as well as Bina, who helps her exercise. As for everything else, especially in New York City, it’s easy to get things delivered. Her groceries and wine and medications appear on her doorstep. The wine, there is a lot of it. Too much. She knows it, but it gives her comfort, just like the old Hitchcock movies that she watches over and over again.

When some new neighbors move in across the street, she gets involved in a different way. The teenage boy Ethan comes over and brings a candle from his mother. She loves his company. When she has an attack while trying to get her groceries, Ethan’s mom helps get her back into the house. Anna enjoys her visit as well. It makes her wonder what her life could maybe me, perhaps a little less insular?

One night she watches a heated exchange between Mr. and Mrs. Russell. She had already gotten the idea from Ethan that Dad was a bit controlling, so her suspicions were up. When she sees Mr. and Mrs. Russell having a heated discussion, she can’t stop watching. Later she sees Mrs. Russell with a knife in her chest, and then she never hears from her again. She calls the police, who treat her like the crazy shut-in that everyone knows her to be. Mr. Russell denies that anything happened, and claims that the person Anna describes isn’t even his wife!

There are many twists and turns in this novel, and I enjoyed having everything revealed to me at just the right time. It didn’t feel manipulative at all, and there was a quieter literary quality about it as well.

Garden of Lamentations

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5M4B disclosure

In a London private garden, accessible only by those whose homes ring the quiet space, a young woman who worked as a nanny in one of the houses is found on a warm May morning, laid out like a princess, but strangled to death. Suspicion must rest on one of the occupants, especially when Detective Gemma James discovers that a few months earlier, a child in another of the houses died. Gemma has a personal connection to the case: a good friend has called her in, and her child dances at the same studio with the boy nannied by the murdered woman.

Meanwhile Gemma’s husband, Duncan Kincaid, is finding himself pulled backwards into cases supposedly already solved. His old boss, Dennis Childs, wants to meet him in secret, and refers to corruption at the heart of the Metropolitan Police force. Dennis is attacked and left for dead on the way home, but fortunately is found by some passing teens shortly after the attack and transferred to hospital. What could he have been referring to? Duncan begins to investigate, but the problem of looking for corruption is knowing whom you can trust. As he discovers connections between a trail of bodies, he has to face the danger he may be putting himself, his family and his colleagues into.

Crombie does a good job of creating an entire world, with characters that play bigger roles in certain books and move into the background in others. For example, Kincaid’s colleagues Doug and Melody both have major story lines, especially Melody, whose boyfriend is touring Europe with his up-and-coming band (including a young and attractive woman), and whose relationship with her parents is strained.

Garden of Lamentations is the 3rd book I have read in the series following the lives of married police detectives Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid, and I love them and want to read more. Each book contains two major cases that the detectives are busy solving, but in the background is their relationship, their family, their friends. I want to know the story behind Charlotte, their adopted daughter who has suffered so much in her young life–the books I’ve read allude to it, but don’t give quite enough of a summary. The current story is more than enough to keep you turning page after page compulsorily, long after a sensible adult person would have gone to bed. In my review of the last  book in the series, To Dwell in Darkness (linked to my review), I also mention this lack of backstory. I have decided it is a brilliant marketing technique. I’m pretty sure to go to Powells over Thanksgiving Break, and I’m going to pick up some copies of earlier works.

Overall, you can read these books just fine without having read the previous. However, To Dwell in Darkness and Garden of Lamentations are linked, with Kincaid following out the story begun in the earlier work. I recommend reading them together. Right now, the first is available for $6.99 at Amazon, and it offers a delightful evening away from holiday stress, maybe while your family cleans up Thanksgiving dinner? It could happen. Then you can get Garden of Lamentations for Christmas.

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What’s on Your Nightstand October 31

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Welcome to a boootiful Halloween edition of What’s on Your Nightstand.

I’m sure there won’t be much quiet reading tonight. You might be taking your own kids around the block to collect candy, and then dealing with the sugar high for the rest of the evening. You might be hopping up and down to answer the door to hand out candy, or maybe you will be fixated on the World Series Game (Go ‘stros!).

Regardless of how much reading you do or don’t tonight, let us know what you read this month, or what you would like to read this upcoming month.

Seven Days of Us

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Complicated family relationships. The holidays. Romantic entanglements. A deadly virus.

Ooh, yes please: the first topic is a topic to which I always gravitate, a little romance isn’t bad, especially if there are twists and turns, the holidays make a good backdrop to any story, especially because it acts to intensify any family issues while also adding a nice layer of nostalgia.

But a deadly virus? How does that factor in to this commonplace setting?

Olivia Birch is a doctor. She’s a “doctors without borders” type, feeling the call to serve others who are less fortunate. She’s just served the maximum amount of time in Liberia, treating the highly contagious (fictional) deadly virus Haag. Because of that, she has to spend seven days in quarantine when she returns. She can be with her family, but everyone has to stay in quarantine as she takes her temperature and monitors her symptoms daily. Olivia hasn’t been home for Christmas in a while, using her work as an escape from the family with which she doesn’t feel much connection. Her return has only confirmed that feeling. No one seems to want to really hear about what she’s seen or what she is feeling. She knew that her self-absorbed younger sister Phoebe wouldn’t be bothered to care, and her hovering mother Emma would probably want to ignore the tough realities, but she thought that her father Andrew, a former war correspondent, would understand and maybe they’d finally connect?

Andrew has been thinking about those days. His restaurant review column has been very successful, and he enjoys it, but is it really what he’s meant to do? He is experiencing more writer’s block than normal. He is also wrestling with the contact he’s recently received from a stranger in his past that would really blow things up for his family if it were to be revealed. He isn’t connecting with Olivia, because maybe he’s a bit jealous of her life.

Phoebe has just gotten engaged. He’s cute, he’s wealthy, so who cares if the proposal was a bit orchestrated and impersonal, and if the ring — though big and beautiful — is not “her”? She jumps right into wedding planning, even hoping to have it at the maternal family estate Weyfield Hall, which his new money doesn’t appreciate.

Emma is hovering as usual, trying to take care of Olivia, wondering what’s up with her husband’s secrecy, and cooking up a storm. She is always cheery, but this Christmas she is hiding a secret of her own. She’s just gotten a cancer diagnosis. She’s only told her best friend, because she doesn’t want to ruin Christmas. Who cares if it might be a bit risky with the possible contagion. Her family is finally all together, and she wants to enjoy the entire week of Christmas.

The story is advanced in chapters in alternating POVs, which is another device that I love. Oh yeah — and it’s set in the British countryside, in a drafty old estate home with no cell service and more rooms than anyone knows what to do with.

This is a debut novel by Francesca Hornak, and I’ll definitely put her on my list of authors to watch.

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