The Daughter's Tale

 Fiction by Armando Lucas Correa

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This book begins in 2015 with Elise Duval, an eighty-year-old woman who gets a shock from reading an old letter written in German, a language she didn't remember she actually knew. It seems she had repressed some memories from her childhood in France during World War Two, and had somehow forgotten that she had originally been German. Then the story goes back to the early 1930's in Berlin and a Jewish woman called Amanda Sternberg, who gives birth to two daughters and then has to figure out how to save them from the Nazis.

This was a good story, but it seemed to skip some details and leave things unresolved. According to the book jacket, it's "based on true events," so that may be the reason for the dearth of information.

Sandwich

 Fiction by Catherine Newman

http://barnesandnoble.com

In this story a family goes to Cape Cod for week in the summer, as they have done every summer for more than twenty years. There are two grown children and two elderly grandparents. Nothing much happens over the course of the week, but the point is the relationships.

This is an emotional novel from the perspective of an empty-nest mother, which is a perspective I can definitely relate to. I liked the book, and much of it resonated with me. I did kind of wish there was more plot.

I also read by this author:  We All Want Impossible Things

( I KNOW I've read this book, as I recognize both the cover art and the synopsis, but there is no entry for it in this blog. I must have forgotten to log it; how irritating of me! )

The Book of Flora

 Fiction by Meg Elison

https://www.audible.com

This is the last book in the "Road to Nowhere" Series (see below). It was a good conclusion to the series, in that it wrapped everything up pretty well while producing some surprises at the end. Still, it was kind of sad to me; I liked the characters of Flora and Etta a lot and really wanted them to end up happier.

I suppose it's hard to have a happy ending in a post-apocalyptic world...

I also read by this author in this series: The Book of the Unnamed Midwife and The Book of Etta

Fleishman is in Trouble

 Fiction by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Toby Fleishman is getting divorced, and he's just discovering the shallow world of online dating when his (almost-ex) wife Rachel brings his kids (Hannah and Solly) to his place unexpectedly. It's their scheduled weekend, but she drops them off them more than a day early and in the middle of night. Then Rachel disappears, even though she was supposed to have retrieved Hannah and Solly at the end of the weekend and taken them to the Hamptons for a vacation. Has something happened to her?

Semi-spoiler alert: Nothing happened to Rachel. That's not what the book is about. The book is about the characters (mostly Toby, but also his friends Libby and Seth, and eventually Rachel) complaining endlessly about their lives and never actually understanding how much they are contributing to their own unhappiness. Also none of them listen to each other, or even seem to try to understand what anyone else feels.

It was really a depressing book.

Saving Max

 Fiction by Antionette Van Heugten

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Danielle's teenage son Max is severely depressed, suicidal, and acting out violently. She is forced to take him to a residential mental facility where she hopes Max can get help. But Max seems to be getting worse instead of better, and he ends up accused of murdering another patient! Can Danielle prove his innocence, as she hopes to do?

This was an okay thriller, but it had a lot of unbelievable elements (especially in the courtroom scenes), and Danielle exhibited a raging case of Hell-Bent Syndrome**, which can be tiresome to read about. 

**Hell-Bent Syndrome

(See The Shape of Snakes by Minette Waters)

This is where the protagonist spends the majority of the book Hell-Bent on solving/getting to the root of whatever the problem of the story is (to the exclusion of everything else in his/her life), while EVERYONE else tells him/her to STOP IT. Many times this path involves the main character getting (or coming perilously close to being) fired, evicted, divorced, disowned, and/or bankrupted, all in pursuit of the elusive TRUTH that he/she is SURE is about to be found.

In real life, this would land our friend the protagonist straight in the looney bin. Think about it: When EVERYONE else's version of reality is the polar opposite of yours, that is called, "You're crazy, dude." (In layman's terms.) But not in the world of the Thriller Novel.

In the Thriller Novel, the sufferer of Hell-Bent syndrome is inexplicably and against all odds proven right in the end, and gets to say "I told you so!" to all the nay-sayers in his/her life who thought he/she was nuts. And then he/she magically recovers everything lost during the downward-spiral portion of the story, like the proverbial country song played backwards. ("You get your wife back, your truck back, your job back...")

Deeper than the Dead

 Fiction by Tami Hoag

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

It’s 1985, and a serial killer is stalking the small town of Oak Knoll, California. Detective Tony Mendez is sure of it, but his supervisor Sheriff Dixon is hesitant to label the murders that way and possibly bring in the FBI. But Tony has a friend in the Bureau who takes an interest in the case, and Agent Vince Leone comes to town on an unofficial basis. Will they be able to solve the case and stop the killer before he strikes again?

This is the first book in the Oak Knoll series, of which I recently read the last.(See below.) It was an exciting mystery thriller with several surprises. Now I have to find the book in between!

I also read by this author: Down the Darkest Road

gods in alabama

 Fiction by Joshilyn Jackson

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This book was published in 2005 and I have read it before, but I didn't remember exactly what had happened. Some characters in it were mentioned in the book Backseat Saints (see below), and I decided to go back and read this one again. The only thing I remembered was that the title had seemed problematic; anything referencing "gods" plural is not a great concept for Southern religious girls like me. But I also remembered that the title didn't refer to actual paganism...

Arlene Fleet begins her story by saying that there are gods in Alabama other than the God worshipped in Alabama churches, and football heroes are an example of that. But Arlene had killed one of those little-g gods, and made a deal with the big-g God in hopes of getting away with it. She promised God that she would never again lie, fornicate, or set foot in her hometown of Posset, Alabama. But then Posset, Alabama, came to her in form of her old schoolmate Rose Mae Lolley.

This was a great story with believable characters. I still think the title could use a tweak for the Southern audience though...

I also read by this author: Backseat Saints

The Secret Book of Flora Lea

 Fiction by Patti Callahan Henry

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1939 London, war is raging and bombs are falling. Parents are strongly encouraged by the British government to send their children away from the city where they will be safe. Hazel and Flora, ages fourteen and five, are sent to Oxfordshire, where they are well-treated by the Aberdeen family but still miss their mum terribly. For comfort, Hazel invents a fairytale story of the magical world of Whisperwood. Together, the girls play a secret make-believe game where they visit Whisperwood and have adventures. 

But one day Flora is left alone by the river and disappears! Hazel blames herself, and the police blame the Aberdeens, but eventually everyone concludes that poor Flora must have drowned. Twenty years later, Hazel is working in a book shop and discovers that a woman in America has published a children's book all about the magical land of Whisperwood! Could Flora be alive after all?

This was a good story with lovely characters. I didn't love it as much as I wanted to though.

I also read by this author: Once Upon a Wardrobe

The Book of Etta

 Fiction by Meg Elison

https://www.audible.com

This book is the sequel to The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. It continues the story of the post-apocalyptic world where the population had been almost wiped out about a hundred years before by a plague that still threatens the human race, especially the women.

The city of Nowhere, the place where the Unnamed Midwife had taken refuge, is surviving, but there are at least ten men for every woman still. Women who have borne a living child are revered, but many still die in childbed fever. Raiders from Nowhere go out to find Old World goods, and to rescue women and girls from slave traders around the country, and Etta is one of those raiders.

This was an exciting continuation of the tale begun in the first book. The story does get darker and more brutal though. There is one more book in the series that I plan to listen to next.

I also read by this author: Find Layla

Broken Country

 Fiction by Clare Leslie Hall

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1968, Beth and her husband Frank are living in tenuous peace on their farm in England, having only partially recovered from the death of their nine-year-old son Bobby a couple of years ago. But then Beth’s first love Gabriel Wolfe returns to town, bringing his own son Leo who reminds Beth strongly of her lost Bobby. 

Beth is first drawn by the motherless boy, but it soon becomes clear that she never stopped loving Gabriel. In the clash between Beth’s love for two men, tragedy ensues, and the story slips back and forth into the past and present, and on to a murder trial in 1969. But which of the men is dead, and who is the killer?

This was an interesting historical novel with good characters. 

Rabbits for Food

 Fiction by Binnie Kirschenbaum

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At the beginning of this book, a woman (possibly named Bunny) is institutionalized after a long slide of depression followed by a violent breakdown. She is refusing treatment.

A few chapters in, I realized that reading the chronicle of her spiraling decline might devastate me beyond repair, and I had to stop reading. Maybe the author should take it as a compliment that her prose affected me so...

I'm logging the book here as a Did Not Finish so I don't accidentally try to read it again.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye

Audible Original Fiction by John Scalzi

https://www.audible.com

What if the moon turned into cheese? LITERALLY?!

There's the premise of this strange book, which is funny and very odd. The story jumps around to different characters and how the moon-change affects them personally. At first I was slightly annoyed by how the characters kept switching out --just when I'd gotten interested in a character, he/she would be unceremoniously dropped and a new one would be introduced-- but after a while I got used to it. I decided to treat the book like a series of connected short stories.

The ending was a surprise!

I also read by this author: Head On

I also listened to from Audible Originals: Hitch Hikers

Disappearing Earth

 Fiction by Julia Phillips

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

On the peninsula of Kamchatka in far northeastern Russia, a pair of young sisters called Sophia and Alyona disappear one summer afternoon. Everyone in the small community frantically searches, but as months pass, things seem hopeless. Because Kamchatka is so isolated, no one really thinks the little girls could have left the peninsula; still, with only one real city in the area and the rest of the land taken up with tiny native towns, there seems nowhere that the sisters could have been taken. Additionally, some people are reminded of the recent disappearance of a native girl called Lilia who was also never found.

Although that is generally the plot synopsis, this book is not a mystery story. Instead it is an examination of a bunch of different characters at different points in the year following the girls' disappearance. The story jumped all over the place, introducing new characters every chapter who were somehow connected to the three lost girls. I found it difficult to read, and I disliked the fact that the question of what had happened to the missing children seemed ancillary to the plot.

I didn't really like this book.

The Farm

 Fiction by Joanne Ramos

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Mae Wu is an ambitious young woman who runs a special enterprise called Golden Oaks Farm that caters to the Very Rich. Golden Oaks is a home for surrogate mothers, but it's an elite one. The women who carry the privileged fetuses for the wealthy clients, called the Hosts, stay on the farm from implantation until birth, and they are carefully taken care of and monitored for the entire nine months. Mae meticulously manages every aspect of the farm, from sourcing the Hosts to keeping the Clients happy.

Jane and Reagan are Hosts at Golden Oaks, each carrying a baby for an unknown Client in order to receive a big bonus after giving birth. But Jane and Reagan are very different people; one is a struggling immigrant mother who does domestic work, and the other is a recent college graduate who wants to pursue an art career without her parents' support. The two of them are befriended by Lisa, a returning Host who knows her way around the farm and isn't above bending the rules.

This was a really interesting book with good characters. The reviews I read weren't overwhelmingly positive, however, and I think that is because readers were expecting the story to be something it isn't. It's not The Handmaid's Tale by any means.

This book is NOT a dystopian novel; it's a realistic one. These characters live in the world that we live in, where the gap between the very rich and very poor exists, but also where almost everyone falls somewhere in between. I really liked this story and it gives the reader a lot to think about.

Ward D

 Fiction by Freida McFadden

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Amy is a medical student doing her clinical rotation in psychiatry, a specialty she has no intention of pursuing due to her personal fears about mental illness. In this story she does her first overnight shift on Ward D, the locked psychiatric wing of the hospital, and she will have to face those fears head-on.

This was an exciting thriller with several surprises! 

I also read recently by this author: The Crash

Slow Dance

 Fiction by Rainbow Rowell

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 2006, Shiloh goes to her friend Mikey's second wedding. She didn't go to his first one, because it was all the way in New York, but this one is right here in Omaha. She hasn't seen Mikey much since they graduated from high school almost fifteen years ago, because she's not good at keeping up with people. But she goes to the wedding, and she dresses up, although she'd not admitting to herself that who she really wants to see is Cary. Cary is the boy she hasn't seen or spoken to since she was nineteen, but she has never stopped thinking of him.

This was a truly lovely romance story. Rainbow Rowell writes the most realistic characters and the best dialogue. I recommend this book!

I also read recently by this author: If The Fates Allow

Deep Freeze

Amazon Prime Fiction by Lisa Jackson. 

https://www.amazon.com

Movie star Jenna Hughes decides to relocate to a small town in Oregon in order to get her daughters (and herself) away from the Hollywood scene after a bitter divorce. But she doesn't realize that an obsessed fan is stalking her...

This book was all right, I guess, but a little over the top in believability. It ended in a cliffhanger to try to hook me on the next book in the series but I think I decline. Still, it WAS free.

I also read by this author: Wicked Ways

I also read (FREE) from Amazon Prime Kindle Fiction: Room for Another

As Long as We Both Shall Live

 Fiction by Joann Chaney

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1995, Matt Evans was married to Janice, but the young couple was off to a rocky start. Only a year after their wedding, Janice was dead. Although the police suspected Matt had killed her, there was no proof.

Over twenty years later, Matt and his wife Marie have two college-aged daughters and seem quite content. In 2018 the couple take a hike together and Marie falls off a cliff. Has Matt Evans killed another wife, or is there something else going on?

This was an exciting thriller with several surprises!

Down the Darkest Road

Fiction by Tami Hoag. 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

It’s been almost four years since sixteen-year-old Leslie Lawton disappeared, and less than two years since Leslie’s father was killed in a car accident. Now Leslie’s mother Lauren and her younger sister Leah are trying to make a fresh start in a new town, away from Santa Barbara and the man Lauren believes killed Leslie. His name is Roland Ballencoa and he is still walking free because the police have no evidence to charge him. But then Lauren sees Ballencoa in her new town….

This was pretty good thriller. It's part of a series (#3), although it didn't make me feel like I had missed too much backstory. I will look for another one by this author.

The River We Remember

 Fiction by William Kent Krueger

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

It’s 1958 in the small town of Jewel, Minnesota, when Jimmy Quinn is found dead in the Alabaster River. Nobody in town much liked Jimmy, although he was probably the richest man there, and Sheriff Brody Dern would like to call the death an accident to avoid any trouble. Unfortunately it becomes apparent that Jimmy Quinn was likely murdered, and that trouble is unavoidable.

This was a good story with great characters. I didn’t love the ending.

I also read by this author: This Tender Land

The Dreamers

 Fiction by Karen Thompson Walker

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a strange book about an outbreak of a previously-unknown sleeping sickness that began on a college campus in a small California town. It was good but not great.

Alice Isn't Dead

 Fiction by Joseph

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Keisha's wife Alice disappeared, and eventually was presumed dead by everyone except Keisha, who refused to believe it. Then Keisha set out to find Alice and prove that she was still alive.

This is an interesting premise, and I liked the beginning of the book. Then it got weirder and darker and I didn't like it anymore.  Then it got even weirder and darker; I gave up about halfway...

The Boy on the Bridge

 Fiction M.R. Carey

https://www.audible.com

This book is the prequel to The Girl With All the Gifts, an excellent zombie apocalypse novel.

(I'll bet you didn't know "excellent" and "zombie apocalypse" could go together like that!)

This also was a very absorbing story with great characters.

I also read recently by this author: Echo of Worlds

Seven Perfect Things

Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story is about Abby, a thirteen year old girl who saves a sack of puppies that someone tried to drown. But then Abby has to decide what to do with seven puppies that her parents will definitely not let her keep. 

As usual with this author, this was a lovely, heart-warming story with interesting and believable characters. It might have ended a little too happily even. 

I also read by this author: Dreaming of Flight

The Au Pair

 Fiction by Emma Rous

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Seraphine and Danny are called the Summerbourne twins, because they were born in the summer of 1992 and also because they were born on the old Summerbourne estate on the English countryside. But the village locals say that the estate is cursed by sprites who have decreed that twins can never survive there. Indeed there were two other sets of twins in the family’s recent past of whom only two ne survived past early childhood.

Although Seraphine and Danny have indeed lived to the age of twenty-five, the rumor is that this is because they aren’t the real Summerbourne twins. Their mother killed herself on the very day of their birth, after she’d delivered at home alone. There are no pictures from the first six months of their lives.

When their father dies unexpectedly, Seraphine finds a lone picture from the day she and Danny were born, showing their mother and father smiling with only one newborn baby. She can’t tell whether the baby is herself or her brother, but viewing the picture reminds her of all the rumors she’s heard during her life: that she or Danny was a changeling child and not a Summerbourne twin at all….

Seraphine decides to go looking for the one person alive who might know what really happened on the day of her birth: the au pair girl Laura who had been living with her family at the time. Maybe Laura can tell her the truth, she thinks.

This is a long and convoluted explanation of this book’s premise, and the eventual conclusion of the story was also confusing and difficult. It was interesting, but too over-the-top complicated.