Nonfiction by Peter Godwin
This author grew up in Africa, but he and his family are white. This book weaves together the story of his family history and the collapse of their troubled adopted country of Zimbabwe.
It was interesting, but I didn't love it.
Fiction by Anne Rivers Siddons
In 1961 there is in a small town in Georgia called Lytton where a girl called Peyton is growing up motherless. Suddenly into her little world comes like whirlwind Nora, an older cousin with a pink Thunderbird, cigarettes, and progressive ideas.
This is a character-driven coming-of-age novel that I really wanted to love. I can't say why I didn't; there was nothing wring with it. In my opinion it was only okay.
Fiction by Kristin Harmel
In this story there is an old woman who lives like a hermit in the forests of Poland and Germany; in 1922 she feels compelled to steal a girl-child from a pair of budding Nazis in Berlin. From this strange beginning comes Yona, a girl raised completely in the wild but educated by her foster mother for a strange destiny neither of them understands. It's only when the Germans invade Poland and small bands of refugee Jews take to the forest that Yona understands her true purpose is to help these broken people survive.
This was a really good story with some unusual twists.
Audible Original Fiction by Liv Constantine
At the beginning of this story, Iris is taking her seven-year-old stepdaughter Molly to a birthday party... at Iris's ex-husband's house, where he lives in an ostentatiously rich fashion with the b-word he left Iris for. But she's trying to be the bigger person and put Molly's friendship needs before her own. Then some surprising things happen...
This was a pretty good novella, although I wish the twist had been less easy to predict. Also I think it would have been more fun as a full novel with more time for character development.
I also listened to recently by Audible Originals: Tell Her Story
I also read by this author: The Last Time I Saw You
Audible Original Fiction by Margot Hunt
Paige Barrett is a disgraced journalist who starts a true-crime podcast that suddenly links up to her real life. This was a pretty good short mystery.
I also listened to recently by audible originals: The Last She
Fiction by Kristan Higgins
Josh and Lauren Park are the perfect young married couple, about to have their third anniversary. Unfortunately, Lauren is dying, and knows she won't make it to their fourth one. She decides to leave Josh a series of letters for him to read after her death, to help him get through his grief and hopefully find love again.
I remember a similar idea in a book called P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern. I guess I read that before I started this book blog; it was made into a movie in 2007. Pack Up The Moon is as good or better. It's a sweet story with really good characters. I really enjoy this author's style.
I also read by this author: Fools Rush In
Fiction by Jon Haldeman
Matt Fuller is a research assistant at the MIT physics department when he discovers that he's accidentally built a time machine (hence the title). What follows is exciting, unpredictable, and sometimes hilarious.
This was a fun little story with narration I enjoyed a lot.
Fiction by John Marrs
In the future, information is currency and security is priceless. When a terrorist group called the Hacking Collective arises, their weapon is full exposure of all secrets, and every world nation lives in fear of them. In Britain, the government is coming up with more and more radical forms of hiding their nation's confidential files: first in moving lorries and then... inside the minds of human subjects?
You're going to have to really stretch your willing suspension of disbelief on this one, I've got to say. I felt like I was stepping around potential plot holes sometimes.
This story is set in the same near-future world as John Marrs's fabulous best-sellers The One and The Passengers, but I didn't like this one quite as much. It was still a solid thriller and a decent read.
I also read by this author: What Lies Between Us
Fiction by Nora Murphy
Leah is a young woman whose life has gotten so narrow that her only daily ritual is going to a different liquor store each day of the week, and her only goal is to supply herself with enough vodka to endure another evening with her handsome, successful, abusive husband. Then one day she sees McKenna, a woman who looks just like Leah herself, only it's the self she was before her husband winnowed her down to that barest nub of a human creature that she is. And McKenna's husband looks pretty controlling...
Leah senses that McKenna is in danger, but can she be saved before it is too late? This was a good thriller with some surprises.
Fiction by Jacqueline Mitchard
Fiction by Jesse Suanto
This was a fun and light story, although I might have enjoyed it better in print rather that on audible.
Fiction by Karin Slaughter
In this story, Dr. Sara Linton is pediatrician and coroner in her small Georgia hometown. The coroner job is usually uneventful, aside from the fact that she has to work with her ex-husband the police chief, until Sara herself discovers a woman stabbed in the ladies' room of the local diner. Then another woman who resembles the first is reported missing. Could there be a crazy criminal on the loose, abducting and killing lookalikes?
This was a good story and the beginning of a series.
I also read recently by this author: False Witness
Fiction by R.W.W. Greene
I found this at the Dollar Tree and it looked good. You don't expect much from a book at the Dollar Tree, to be honest; I'm pretty sure that's the place where bad books go to die. But this was (fortunately!) not a bad book.
Over a thousand years in the future, Earth is pretty much dead, and everyone who possibly could has evacuated into space colonies. Adem is a part owner in his family's starship business, which gives him a livelihood and freedom to travel, but limits his dating prospects. It's tough to meet chicks when you land on a planet for only a day or two at time, and then when you come back only a few weeks in light-year travel later, you find that years have passed on that planet since you last visited.
So Adem does what most space travelers do: contracts with an on-planet matchmaker to buy a wife from a couple expecting a baby, and then plans to come back and pick her up when she's twenty-four years old. Wait, what?! Yep, you've got to do some willing suspension of disbelief on this story, but if you know anything about science-fiction you should be aware of the light-years-travel-time-distortion concept.
Anyways, this was a pretty good story that kept my attention.
