Ask Again Yes

Fiction by Mary Beth Keane

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

In the early seventies, Francis and Brian, a pair of NYPD cops, buy suburban homes next door to each other and begin raise their families there.  Francis's wife wants to make friends with the neighbors, but Brian's wife Anne is decidedly unsociable. Even after their kids become best friends growing up, Anne keeps her distance from the family next door, and everyone else.

It's clear all along that there is something wrong with Anne, but the trouble that arises from her mental instability comes as a surprise to everyone.

This is a really good book with great characters.

The Good Daughter

Fiction by Karin Slaughter

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

This story begins with two teenage daughters, forced out of their home after it was firebombed by someone with a grudge against their father. The girls and their parents are rebuilding their lives in an unfamiliar rental home, but their dad's enemies aren't finished with them yet. Tragedy strikes them hard and the family is left in pieces.

Twenty-eight years later, the younger girl remains in the same town, working with her father and trying to be "the good daughter." But the past has a way of catching up with you...

This was an exciting thriller with great characters and several surprises!

I also read recently by this author: Pieces of Her

Once More We Saw Stars

Nonfiction by Jayson Greene

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

One day in Manhattan, a two-year-old called Greta is sitting on park bench with her grandmother when a brick windowsill high above them suddenly crumbles and sends a few pieces of falling masonry down on them both. One of the bricks hits Greta in the head, and she will not survive the blow.

That terrible event --so much worse because it is true-- happens at the beginning of the book. The story then is, how will her parents survive the blow of her death? I don't know how they can, to be honest, especially since they do not have faith in God. Still, the author gives us an honest look at their faltering journey back to life after the death of a child.

This some beautiful and heartbreaking prose, written and read by Greta's dad. It's definitely worth reading.

The Confession Club

Fiction by Elizabeth Berg

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story is apparently a companion to The Story of Arthur Trulv, although it could definitely be read independently.

It's about a group of women who have a confession club, as the name indicates, which is a group in which they take turns confessing things to each other. The confessions are either things they have done wrong, or just stories about themselves that they might be ashamed of.

This was a good book with interesting characters.

I also read by this author: Talk Before Sleep. I did not like that book, but I have read many by this author that I did like. Apparently it was before I started recording my reading in this blog, however, because I couldn't find them here for reference.

Find Another Dream

Nonfiction by Maysoon Zayid

https://www.audible.com

So, I have a subscription to audible.com, and this is one of their "Audible Originals" that you can only get through their website.

I really like my subscription, to be honest. If you're interested in that sort of thing, here's an explanation: I pay $14.99 and receive credit for one audiobook each month, plus I can choose two of their "originals" from a list that changes monthly. I can also purchase credits in multiples for about $11 each to get additional books. Since audiobooks normally cost at least twenty bucks each, and often more than that depending on the length, I feel like it's a good deal. I listen to several books a month.

Although I have enjoyed all the books I've picked from my subscription, the Audible Originals have been a kind of a mixed bag. Some of them are really good, and some are actually terrible. I'll review some more Originals later to show what I mean. (one of them I reviewed a while ago; see The Apartment.)

This book --YES, we are three paragraphs in and I'm just now getting to the part about this book-- was really good. It's a memoir read by the author, who is a comedienne and actress, and she is super fun to listen to! She is Palestinian-American and has cerebral palsy, and her story is about finding her way in the world of performing, despite being told many times to, "Find another dream."

It's a fun book to listen to and not super long.

Dead Silence

Fiction by Wendy Corsi Staub

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is a sequel to Little Girl Lost, which I read a few weeks ago. It takes place nearly thirty years after the first story, but it's still connected. Amelia, the main character from Little Girl Lost, is now established in her career as a research genealogist. She helps other people find their lost relatives, but she still hasn't discovered any answers about her own mysterious parentage.

At the same time, a little boy is found abandoned in a field by an Amish farmer. The child appears to be at least four, but seems traumatized and refuses to speak. Who is he, and could he be in danger?

This was an exciting book, but it did not complete the story. There is apparently a third novel coming out in August....

Pieces of Her

Fiction by Karin Slaughter

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a great thriller!! It started out with just a mom and her adult daughter having coffee and then went right into WOW! There's a shooter at the coffee shop and that fifty-five year-old mother goes into mama-bear-protecting-her-cub mode. And the story just gets better from there!

I also read by this author: Pretty Girls

Where the Crawdads Sing

Fiction by Delia Owens

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/
I've been hearing about this book for a while; everyone seems to love it. Well, I finally read it, and I admit to loving it too.

At the beginning of this novel, a little girl called Kya is abandoned by her mother in the marshlands of North Carolina. Years later, the body of a local young man is discovered in the area. Are the two events connected? The story moves forward on both timelines to connect the dots.

I really liked this book and the characters.

Ada Blackjack

Nonfiction by Jennifer Niven

https://www.barnesandnoble.com
Even though I have moved away from Alaska, I'm still very interested in stories of the arctic.

This is the true story of an expedition begun in 1921 by an "explorer" and lecturer called Stefansson. He insisted that the frozen north should be called "the Friendly Arctic," and that it was no more "dangerous" to live there than in a modern city. He set up an expedition with four young men from the lower forty-eight and one Eskimo woman and sent them to live on an arctic island for a year. Wrangel Island, their destination, is an ice-bound and desolate place north of Siberia, and Stefansson planned to "colonize" it for Canada, even though the island had already been claimed by Russia. (I'm using a lot of quote marks here because I really didn't like this guy.)

You can guess that this expedition didn't end well.

This book was pretty good; I probably would have like a fictionalization of the story better because this version is not very personal.

Little Girl Lost

Fiction by Wendy Corsi Staub

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was an exciting story about an abandoned baby and a serial killer (or two!). It is supposed to be the beginning of a trilogy, so I'm looking for the next book.

I also read by this author: Blood Red

Wool

Fiction by Hugh Howey

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/
In the dystopian future, after the world is destroyed, people are forced to live underground in huge silos 144 levels deep. Life is carefully and rigidly controlled, and the most dangerous thing to wish for is to go OUTSIDE.

Because if you want to go outside, they'll let you out... but you won't come back. Instead you will have to clean off the camera lenses that give the people inside a view of the barren and inhospitable world, and then you will lie down and die from the toxic air.

As you can see, this book is pretty dark. But hey, the dystopian future is no picnic, right?

Nameless Series

Fiction by Dean Koontz

https://www.amazon.com
This is a series of six novellas available only though Amazon Kindle. While I am not a fan of electronic readers (I strongly prefer paper books), I AM a fan of Mr. Koontz. So, I downloaded the Kindle app on my phone and read these stories.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I also was away from home without anything to read over Christmas break, AND this series was free with my Amazon prime membership. These factors completely persuaded me to put aside my distaste for e-readers.)

These stories were really good! The protagonist is a man called Nameless, who can't remember anything about his past, even his own identity. (That's why he's called Nameless; get it?) Anyways, he goes around finding people who have been victimized by those the law can't or won't rescue them from, and saving these poor souls in vigilante, butt-kicking style.