Hiding in Plain Sight

Subtitled: the Incredible True Story of a German-Jewish Teenager's Struggle to Survive in Nazi-Occupied Poland

Nonfiction by Betty Lauer

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Betty Lauer was only twelve in 1938 when Nazi authorities forced her family from their home in Germany and dumped them across the border into Poland. There followed her seven-year struggle to survive in the soon-conquered Poland as the Nazi killing machine rolled across the Jews of continental Europe. Betty was one of only four members of her family to live past those terrible war years, and ninety-six people from her immediate family are listed in the memorial to the dead in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

This story is an amazing firsthand account of her experience, and it was both fascinating and terrible to read.

The Secrets of the Notebook

Subtitled: A Woman's Quest to Uncover Her Royal Family's Secret

Nonfiction by Eve Haas

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

As a sixteen-year-old German Jewish girl in 1940, Eve was told by her father that her family had a secret royal ancestor, and he showed her a notebook as proof. The notebook was a diary, handwritten by Prince August, a member of the Hohenzollern royal family in the direct line of the Prussian throne. At the time Eve's family was living in London, having narrowly escaped from Nazi Germany a few years before, and the bombings in England had made her father feel concerned that this family secret would die with him.

After that first revelation Eve's father apparently had hidden the notebook away, and it was not until her mother's death in 1970 that Eve was able to look at the notebook once again.  At that point, Eve began to try to prove the authenticity of the notebook and of her family's connection to the royals of Prussia, a journey that would take her into danger behind the Iron Curtain and into East Germany.

This is a very interesting description, and the story should have been fascinating to read. However, I couldn't get myself into the story. The information was good, but it wasn't written in a very exciting way.

A Scattered Life

 Fiction by Karen McQuestion

https://www.amazon.com

Apparently this book was first released as a self-published book on amazon kindle, and the author has since written many books. A lot of her stories are exclusive to amazon, although I did get this one at my local library.

This novel centers on Skyla, a young woman who finds security in marrying and settling down in a smallish Wisconsin town after a lifetime of traveling around with her father. Skyla forms a strong friendship with her neighbor Roxanne, who has five children and embraces the chaos of life. I'm not sure if the title refers to Roxanne or Skyla, or both of them. Both of them are realistic characters and interesting to read about.

This was a very good book with some surprises.

I also read recently by this author: The Long Way Home

The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance

 Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This book is marked YA for young adult reading, but I think it's not for teenagers. It's pretty depressing at first, and there is a thirteen-year old alcoholic. (eek)

Still, it is a really engaging story and the characters are realistic. I didn't like it as much as the other books I've read by this author, but that's okay because I LOVED those.

I also read recently by this author: Walk Me Home

A Time For Mercy

 Fiction by John Grisham

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1988, John Grisham published his first novel, A Time to Kill, a great courtroom thriller about Jake Brigance, a lawyer defending a man who killed his daughter's rapist. This book returns to the same town and takes place only five years after the events of that first book, although it was published in 2020.

In this book, Jake Brigance once again is defending a murderer in a case of what might be called justifiable homicide. But this story is more complicated, and unfortunately it's less enjoyable to read.

I don't want to spoil anything, but the ending ruined this book for me. The story was good up until I got near the end and realized that no resolution seemed to be in sight. The best thing about fiction is the fact that the author can tell you a full story and its ending. In this book I think Mr. Grisham forgot that his job is to tell us how the story ended.

I also read recently by this author: The Guardians

The Ickabog

 Fiction by J.K. Rowling

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a fun little story that was NOT like the Harry Potter series. It was more of a light fantasy. This edition had illustrations done by children across Canada and the USA that were very nice.

I enjoyed it.

I also read recently by this author: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Monogamy

 Fiction by Sue Miller.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story is about a couple called Annie and Graham. The title of "monogamy" is a bit ironic since a major plot point is the fact that Graham is a chronically unfaithful husband.

I thought the book started well but turned disappointing. The characters were kind of unsympathetic and it seemed like the story was a little disconnected. Still, I did want to know what happened.

I've read other books by this author that were much better.

I also read by this author: The Arsonist, The Senator's Wife

Elsewhere

 Fiction by Dean Koontz

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Jeffery and his daughter Amity are living a peaceful life in a quiet California town where Jeffery works from home and befriends all the neighbors. Then Ed, one of the odder neighbors Jeffery has befriended, a strange man who lives in the nearby woods in a tent, decides to entrust Jeffery with a mysterious package. "NEVER open it," Ed admonishes, and disappears.

Well, because this is the opener to a story, the reader can guess that the package will be opened at some point, and drama will ensue. And because this is a story by Dean Koontz, the reader knows that weird things will happen, but that eventually, the protagonist will triumph.

I like the predictable nature of  Mr. Koontz's characters: his good guys are very good, and his bad guys are VERY bad. You really want the protagonist to win, and the antagonist to suffer mightily. Because of the fantastic nature of the story, the solidness of the characters acts as an anchor to keep the novel grounded and believable.

This is a good story in the classic Dean Koontz style.

The Hate U Give

 Fiction by Angie Thomas

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I've been intending to read this book for a while; the Christmas before last I was at a "dirty Santa" gift exchange where people were talking about how good it was. I tried to take the book home --it was one of the gifts-- but someone took it from me.  When I saw the book available on audible being read by one of my favorite narrators (Bahni Turpin), I bought it right away.

The story centers on Starr, a sixteen-year-old black girl in a fictional urban area called Garden Heights. Because of the poverty and gang violence in the neighborhood, Starr's parents send her and her two brothers to a fancy prep school in the "white" part of town. As a result, Starr feels caught between black and white, trying to navigate both worlds at school and at home.

Then racial profiling and police violence come too close to Starr, and an unarmed black teenage boy she knows well is killed. Starr has to merge her two worlds and find her own voice to speak out against injustice.  

This was a really good book with great characters. It also makes you think. The audiobook narration makes the story even better.

The Long Way Home

 Fiction by Karen McQuestion

https://www.amazon.com

Marnie is thirty five years old and goes to a grief support group after the death of her fiance Brian. The group has several grieving older women and a grouchy moderator. But when a younger woman called Jazzy comes breezing into Marnie's first group meeting, she changes the whole dynamic.

This was a fun story with really good characters.

Walk Me Home

 Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a great story about a pair of sisters aged 16 and 11 who are trying to avoid foster care after their mother's death. The older girl, Carly, has a plan to return to their stepfather in California; the only problem is that their mom recently left him for another guy and they live in New Mexico now.

Actually, there are many more problems with Carly's plan than she realizes, but it will take quite a while for her to understand that. I really enjoyed this book.

I also read recently by this author: Brave Girl Quiet Girl

All My Puny Sorrows

 Fiction by Miriam Toews

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Yolandi and Elfrieda are sisters who grew up as Canadian Mennonites and are still close as adults. However, they are very different. 

Elfrieda, the older sister, is a successful concert pianist with a loving husband and beautiful apartment in Winnipeg. Yolandi is a broke divorcee with two kids by two different dads and a crappy apartment in Toronto. But the biggest problem the sisters face is the fact that Elfrieda keeps trying to kill herself.

This was a hard book for me to read, because I could not see it ever ending well. Elf was just so despairing. Nothing anyone said seemed to make her want to live. The characters were so realistic I could feel both sisters' sorrow. (Not to mention their mother!)

I can't say how this book ended of course (I have rules about that), but it's not really a sad ending. The interesting thing is how little actual life circumstances seemed to affect these women's natural optimism or pessimism. This book definitely made me think.

You Could Be Home By Now

 Fiction by Tracy Manaster

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story takes place in 2010, in an Arizona retiree community, one of those golf-course-centered condo developments where all residents must be over 55. Into this setting several characters converge: an attractive recent widow, a divorced man still hung up on his ex-wife, a grandmother struggling to make ends meet due to the recent recession, and a couple of visiting grandchildren, one of which has stayed too long and is now in violation of the community's strict no-kids policy. 

Also there is the owner/developer of the place, a man with an ego big enough to hold a festival on his birthday and call it Founder's Day, who has recently hired a couple of teachers from back East to try to give his upstart little community some culture and history.

This was a good character story that had a few small surprises.

Brave Girl Quiet Girl

 Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I have just been loving these books by this author recently!! They are not thrillers or suspense stories, and yet I still can't bear to put them down as soon as I start reading. I don't know why I've never read more of Ms. Hyde's work! I read her popular novel Pay it Forward years ago, but I definitely should have followed up with more of her books.

This story is about Brooke, a young mother of a toddler, and Molly, a teenage girl. Brooke has ended up back home with her own difficult mother after an ignominious divorce, and Molly has been living on the streets since her own mom kicked her out of the house. The two of them meet under strange circumstances and change each other's lives.

This is a really good book!!

I also read recently by this author: When I Found You