Out of the Easy

 Fiction by Ruta Sepetys

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Josie Moraine didn't choose New Orleans; her mother Louise dragged her there in 1940 when she was just a little girl. She certainly didn't choose to grow up there in the heart of the French Quarter with everyone knowing her mother was a prostitute. But now it's 1950, Josie is turning eighteen, and she's got big plans to leave the Big Easy and start fresh. Will she be able to break out of her mother's shadow and somehow gain respectability?

This was a good story with great characters.

I also read by this author: Ashes in the Snow

Culpability

 Fiction by Bruce Holsinger

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Noah and Lorelei live in the not-so-distant future where self-driving cars are commonplace. So when they take a road trip with their three kids, they aren't too concerned about their safety. Noah is on his laptop sending work emails and Lorelei is similarly absorbed, working on her phone. Seventeen-year-old Charlie is at the wheel, letting the self-driving system do its work, while his younger sisters ride in the back. Suddenly, inexplicably, there is a collision with another car. The family is injured but mostly okay. The couple in the other car dies.

Immediately the question is: who is at fault? Is it the AI system, who was supposed to be in charge? Is it Charlie, who was at the wheel? Is it Noah, who was in the passenger seat, nominally supervising his minor son? There is a serious investigation underway, and nearly everyone in the family feels weighed down by the cloud of suspicion and guilt.

The story is called "culpability," and it is indeed about finding out who is to blame for the accident, but it is more about the family themselves and their relationships. I think it's also about the idea that culpability is not so easily assigned; there can be many levels of fault and more than one person to blame in any situation..

This was good story that made you think; it was not perhaps a completely enjoyable read, however.

Picking up the Pieces

 Fiction by Amanda Prowse.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Nora and Kiki are sisters, but they are not very close. Not only are they separated by a twelve-year age gap, they were raised almost completely apart because of their parents' tragic death when Kiki was only a baby. Nora grew up in boarding schools while Kiki was raised by their grandmother, and each sister felt that the other one had the better situation. Instead, it turns out that both girls are struggling.

Now Nora is on the brink of divorce from her Army husband in Cyprus, and Kiki is back in England fighting major depressive disorder. Can the two sisters find their way back to each other and heal the relationship?

This was a very good story by an author I had not heard of. I will definitely look for more of her books.

Hallowe'en Party

 Fiction by Agatha Christie

https://www.audible.com

Mrs. Oliver, the famous writer of detective stories, is attending a Halloween party in small British village when an adolescent girl boasts that she had once seen a murder committed. Nobody believes her, but when the same girl ends up murdered herself by the end of the evening, Mrs. Oliver wonders if perhaps she had been telling the truth. She enlists her friend Hercule Poirot to come to town and solve the mystery.

This was a good story with a surprise ending.

I also read recently by this author: Endless Night

The Mystery of Three Quarters

 Fiction by Agatha Christie and Sophie Hannah

http://barnesandnoble.com

This book is one of a new series of Hercule Poirot books written by a modern author "in the style of" Agatha Christie. Sophie Hannah is apparently endorsed by the late author's estate, and she does a really good job of capturing the character of M. Poirot while coming up with her own story lines.

In this book, four strangers receive letter purporting to be from Hercule Poirot that accuse them of murdering a certain man, a man who died from what appeared to have been an accident. But M. Poirot had sent no such letters. Still, he will be enticed into investigating, of course.

This was a good story with a surprise ending.

I also read by this author: The Monogram Murders

Wanting Daisy Dead

 Fiction by Sue Watson

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

It's been twenty years since Daisy Harrington died in her second year of university. Now her former housemates are being invited to celebrate what would have been her fortieth birthday by coming to a reunion at St. Luke's Campus, Exeter, and participating in a podcast called "The Killer Question."

And by "invited," I really mean "coerced;" each housemate receives a letter threatening to reveal the secret reason he or she wanted Daisy dead if they refuse to participate. And apparently, they ALL wanted Daisy dead. She was quite terrible, by all accounts.

This book was okay, but I didn't really like it. Every character was pretty unpleasant, and the convoluted plot stretched believability past its limits. But it WAS free.....

I also read recently by Amazon Prime Kindle: All the Lies

Wreck

 Fiction by Catherine Newman 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is the sequel to Sandwich, which I read fairly recently. It was shorter, but similar to that book with strong believable characters and honest emotions, but not tons of actual plot. It also made made me vaguely sad, like its predecessor.

One thing I really liked about this sequel is that it showed how the relationship between Rachel, the protagonist, and her daughter Willa had grown closer; in the other book the child had been in a sulky-teenaged-I-prefer-dad stage that was heartbreaking for the mother. I loved seeing that.