Fiction by Katherine Center.
Sarah has been unexpectedly fired from her fabulous advertising job in New York City just before Thanksgiving. But she decides she won’t think about that problem until she gets back from visiting her sister Mackie in Houston; maybe some solution will present itself during the holiday….
This was another fun romance by this author whose style I’m really fond of. I love the characters!
Subtitled: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle
Nonfiction by Mark Wolynn
This was an interesting psychology book about how the traumatic events our ancestors experienced can actually live on in our own DNA, even if we’re not aware of it.
I really liked the case studies, and I kind of skimmed the more scholarly parts…
Fiction by
Emily is a lawyer who hasn’t been back to her small hometown in twenty years. When a bad breakup and other circumstances send her there, nearly the first person she sees is her old high school boyfriend, and he’s being arrested for murder! Will she take his case? (Duh.)
This was an okay legal thriller, light on the “thrill” part. I was surprised by the ending.
Fiction by Diane Chamberlain
In the summer of 1962, young sisters Isabel, Julie, and Lucy went down to the New Jersey shore with their parents, as they had every summer before that. But that year something terrible happened, and by the end of the summer Isabel would be murdered and Julie and Lucy would never be the same.
Now it’s forty-one years later, and some new evidence comes to light about Isabel’s death now the whole thing will be raked up again. Will the truth be finally uncovered?
This was an interesting story with some surprises and great characters.
I also read recently by this author: The Shadow Wife
Fiction by R.F. Kuang
June and Athena are both writers and they’re sort-of friends. That is, they went to school together and have known each other for nearly ten years, going for drinks occasionally and hanging out. But they don’t appear to actually like each other.
The main problem is that Athena is successful and June is… not. Then one day June sees an opportunity to change that and she seizes it. What follows is a story that gave me a lot of secondhand embarrassment and Oh-No-I-Can’t-Look Syndrome.**
Still, it was an interesting story and I did finish it. I can't really say I liked it...
** Oh-No-I-Can't-Look Syndrome
(See After Anna by Lisa Scottoline)
That's when you know a main character is making a major error in judgement that's going to have huge and terrible consequences.
Nonfiction by Cathy Glass
This story has three separate storylines that I thought might intersect but really didn’t. Of course, I know that with nonfiction everything can’t line up neatly, but I was kind of disappointed.
The main story of this book was about three brothers aged seven and under, and about their mother who was having trouble coping with three small kids. At the beginning Cathy Glass was only fostering the oldest boy, but it seemed like all three would come into care eventually.
This was a pretty good book but definitely not one of this author’s best.
Fiction by Diane Chamberlain
This is a re-release of the book Cypress Point under a different title. Since I hadn't previously read that book before it didn't matter to me, but this seemed to be quite an issue in the reviews. So... heads-up, I guess.
Joelle is a hospital social worker who has recently discovered she is pregnant. The problem with that is: she's divorced and the father of this baby is married to someone else. Also he works at the hospital with her and she's in love with him.
This was a really good story.
Nonfiction by Cathy Glass.
In this book foster carer Cathy Glass takes in baby Arthur and his mum Lara. Arthur is only a year old and was seen by a pediatrician who suspected the child’s many bruises were not accidental. Lara insists that little Arthur is just accident-prone, but no one can be sure. Therefore a judge has ordered Lara be monitored in a foster home mother-and-baby placement at Cathy’s.
Lara is very young and has a tendency towards questionable boyfriends but she does seem to want to be a good mother. Will her good intentions be enough?
This was a pretty good story.
Fiction by Nicole Trope.
Beverly is a young single mother. Her son Riley is eight years old and she has told him that his father is dead. One day Riley begins receiving mysterious presents in the mailbox with unsigned notes, and he begins to nourish a hood that they are from his father, who might not be dead after all. But the real sender if this gifts is someone he doesn’t expect…
This was an exciting thriller with some surprises.
Subtitled: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity
Nonfiction by Leah Myers
The author begins this story by identifying herself as the last member of her tribe in her family line. Since she is only one-eighth native blood (the smallest percentage recognized by the blood quantum laws of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe of the Pacific Northwest), and there are only 542 tribal members left in total (of which 297 are also 1/8 blood), this is probably true. Technically.
Still, I feel like part of the point of this book is that blood percentages are not necessarily the best gauge of tribal identity. Leah spends a lot of time spelling out exactly how her ancestors live on as a part of her; her great-grandmother Lillian, her grandmother Vivian, and her mother Kristy are all pieces of her tribal identity even as their blood is "thinned" by time and intermarriage.
I also feel like the author has a whole lot of anger rolled up into her tribal identity, not that I blame her. She is not wrong in asserting that native peoples have been systematically decimated through deliberate action by white people over the past several hundred years. It's a sad thing, and should not be overlooked. Attempted genocide has indeed been committed.
But here's the thing: Leah is still here. Those 541 other people are still here. And their thinned blood still lives on in countless others, whether they know it or not. Therefore the genocide was not successful, and I think that makes a difference. I don't know if Leah would agree; she's still pretty mad.
This book was interesting but not very enjoyable. It did give me something to think about.
Fiction by Kristin Harmel
In 1939 Juliette and Elise are two American women living in Paris. Both are married to Frenchmen and expecting a baby, and both of them will give birth to a girl. But war is on the horizon, and their daughters will be threatened in ways they can't yet imagine.
This was a good story with great characters. There was even a brief mention of some characters that were also in The Book of Lost Names(see below).
I also read recently by this author: The Book of Lost Names
Fiction by Tom Hanks
I couldn't get interested in this book for some reason.
Fiction by Emma Cline
Image from https://www.barnesandnoble.com
Amazon Prime Kindle Fiction by Susanne Pari
Mitra Jahani feels like she gave up a lot to save her younger sister Ana. When their controlling Iranian-American father refused to let Ana get married until Mitra agreed to marry also (to a suitable Iranian boy chosen by her father, of course), Mitra acquiesced to the wedding but backed out at the last minute in a dramatic fashion: she had sterilization surgery and rendered herself unmarriageable.
But then Ana died suddenly, and since her death Mitra has struggled to find a purpose for herself in this world where she is sisterless. Now it is the one-year anniversary of Ana's death and Mitra is traveling to New York for the family ceremony. (Apparently Iranians have a second funeral service for this. I think it's a really interesting idea.) Mitra must finally confront her estranged father and try to come to terms with Ana's death all at once.
This was a good character story about both Iranian culture and about the relationship between sisters.
I also read recently (for free) from Amazon Prime Kindle: Don't Believe it
Youth Fiction by Cammie McGovern
This is a story for young readers written from the point of view of a cat. It was a fun read.
I also read by this author: The Art of Seeing
Fiction by Katherine Center
Having lost her husband two years before, Libby is moving to her aunt's goat farm in Texas to start over, bringing along her two small children. Of course, by saying she "lost her husband," I mean that he died. Despite the book's title, the man is not really lost.
Then Libby meets a strange girl called Sunshine who cheerfully states that she can find Libby's lost husband. What can she mean? And, more importantly, can Libby move on with her life in this new place without her husband?
This was a really fun story with great characters and a couple of surprises.
Keeper of the Light, Kiss River, and Her Mother's Shadow
Fiction by Diane Chamberlain
Fiction by Olga Tokarczuk
I'll admit I chose this book simply for the title. It's a great title.
Unfortunately I didn't like anything else about it.
Amazon Prime Kindle Fiction by Charlie Donlea
In 2007 on the island of St Lucia, American vacationer Julian Christ was murdered. His girlfriend Grace Sebold was quickly charged with and convicted of the crime, and sentenced to life imprisonment despite her protestations of innocence. But now, ten years later, true-crime documentary filmmaker Sidney Ryan is looking into the case.
Was Grace wrongly convicted or did the St. Lucia police have it right all along? What will be uncovered through the documentary filming?
This was an interesting story with surprises; I'm not sure about the ending. Maybe it's a setup for a sequel?
I also read by this author: Some Choose Darkness
I also read (for free!) by Amazon Prime Kindle: The Couple Across the Street
Fiction by Shelly Read
The first time Victoria Nash met Wilson Moon, she fell in love with him. But it was 1949 and Iola, Colorado, was a small insular town that called Wilson a no-good Injun, refusing to let him hang around. What would become of the two young lovers?
This was a good story but a sad one.
Fiction by Nicole Trope
Leslie left Millie, her three year old daughter, at home while she went to the grocery store, trusting her twelve year old stepdaughter Shelby to babysit. When Leslie came back, Millie was gone. Shelby said the child ran away, but did she really? And for that matter, did Leslie really go to the grocery store? And what about Randall, the girls' father; was he really out golfing?
This was an exciting thriller with several surprises.
Fiction by Katherine Center
Helen is thirty-two years old and recovering from a failed marriage when she signs up for a “wilderness experience" trip as an attempt to Be Something Different. What she doesn’t expect is that her little brother’s best friend will follow her there, potentially ruining her chance at a fresh start by muddying up her future with pieces of the past.
This was a good story with memorable characters.
Fiction by Terra Little
Pamela and Paris are identical twins, raised together in the small town of Mercy, Georgia, but bound for very different destinies.
This book was okay but I didn’t love it. I felt like it gave too much of the plot away at the beginning and I had trouble engaging with the characters.
Amazon Prime Kindle Fiction by Freida McFadden
Fiction by Diane Chamberlain
Travis and his four-year-old daughter Bella are living in his van and really hurting for money, and so he makes a desperate move. He trusts a stranger to watch Bella for him while he takes a sketchy-sounding job promising a big payout for one night's work. Will this gamble pay off? Is Bella going to be okay? And how did Travis get in this situation anyways?
All questions were answered by the end of this exciting story filled with wonderful characters.
