Why Karen Carpenter Matters

 Nonfiction by Karen Tongsen

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I got this book (along with several others about the late singer Karen Carpenter) because I'm kind of researching the Carpenters for a possible musical revue performance. I read a biography of her years ago before I started logging my books --I think it was Little Girl Blue by Randy Schmidt-- and I wanted a little refresher course. 

This book was a bit colored by the author's own take. The author herself was named after the singer, and her home country of the Philippines apparently has a special affinity for Karen Carpenter. It was a pretty good short read.

The Paris Secret

 Fiction by Karen Swan

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At the beginning of this story, set in approximately 2017, an apartment in Paris is discovered that has been sealed and unoccupied since the second world war. The place is owned by the rich Vermeil family, but they had been unaware of its existence; that is, most of them did not know about it. When the information comes to light, M. Vermeil finds out that his widowed nonagenarian mother had kept the property a secret on purpose, and indeed the old lady still wants to completely forbid entry. But why?

M. Vermeil calls on British art agent Flora Sykes to investigate the property and see what it contains, keeping to the letter of his mother's wishes by not going into the apartment himself. Flora discovers a treasure trove of artwork, including several pieces of great value. She begins to research the provenance of the art so that it can be sold, and runs up against a problem: the valuable art pieces seem to have all passed through the hand of a known and hated Nazi collaborator, a man known for stripping assets from Jewish families during the war. It's an ethical dilemma. Does this art belong to the Vermeil family at all?  

As an intellectual exercise, this plot is really interesting and gave me a lot to think about. However, as a story it was a bit lacking. The author left some loose ends but still managed some leaping coincidental plot twists, and the characters were often less than believable. I didn't love this book.

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

 Fiction by Meg Elison

https://www.audible.com

After a terrible plague wipes out almost the whole human population, killing 95% of men and 99% of women, the Unnamed Midwife of this story has lost everyone and everything she knows, including her profession. 

This was an engrossing story with a unique voice. I've read other post-apocalyptic stories, and even several with the "virus-kills-almost-all-women" idea, but this one may be the best.

Or Else

 Fiction by Joe Hart

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Andy is a mystery/thriller writer who moves into a house in his old neighborhood after his wife has left him. He needs a change, and he needs to keep an eye on his father, who has just been diagnosed with dementia. What he doesn’t need is to start an affair with Rachel, a married woman who lives down the street. He does that anyway. Then he receives an anonymous note, telling him to stop seeing Rachel, “or else.”

This was a pretty good thriller with some surprises. I didn't love it. Still, it was free with Amazon prime...

I also read (free!) from Amazon Prime Kindle: The Inmate

No Ordinary Life

 Fiction by Suzanne Redfearn. 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At the beginning of this story, Faye is a mother of three who has run out of options in Yakima, Washington. Her husband Sean disappeared over six months ago, her son is in serious need of counseling, and she has no reserves left. Faye moves in with her mother in Los Angeles, and fortunes change drastically. 

This was a really good story! I loved the characters, especially Faye. Everything I’ve read by this author is great!

I also read by this author: Where Butterflies Wander

The Rules do not Apply

 Nonfiction by Ariel Levy

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At one point in this story, the author attends a small party where a new acquaintance asks, "Are you the Ariel that all the bad things happened to?" Unfortunately, she has to say yes to that question. 

Ariel begins this book at a low point: her spouse has left her, her baby died, and she has to leave her beloved home. Then she goes back in time, and she tries to explain to the reader how she started out to be "the kind of woman who is free to do as she chooses," and ended up finding out how many things that she decidedly did not choose will happen anyway.

This was a really interesting memoir, honest and touching and very readable.

The Night the Lights Went Out

 Nonfiction by Drew Magary

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

The author suffered an unexplained brain hemorrhage in December of 2018 and came very close to death. He tells the story of his struggle to recover in this book.

It was very interesting and quite funny in parts. I really appreciated the honesty.

I also read by this author: The Hike

Bonfire

 Fiction by Krysten Ritter

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Abby Williams is an environmental lawyer in Chicago, but she is still haunted by memories of Barrens, Indiana, the small town she grew up in. There was a girl called Kaycee Mitchell, who was both Abby's best friend in elementary school and chief bully in high school; Kaycee became inexplicably ill during senior year and then disappeared just before graduation. Ten years later, Abby gets the chance to investigate a case in Barrens, and goes there with the idea of finally solving the mystery of Kaycee's illness and disappearance.

This was a pretty good mystery/ thriller, but I didn't love it.

The Clocks

 Fiction by Agatha Christie

https://www.audible.com

At the beginning of this story, discovered in the front room of a blind woman's house, we have: a shorthand typist,  several stopped clocks set to exactly 4:13, and a murdered man. The woman herself has no idea how any of those things arrived. They certainly weren't there before she went out shopping that afternoon.

This book is listed at the 34th Hercule Poirot mystery, which is an amazingly high number! However, the famed detective is not a prominent character this time; he shows up in time to solve the case, but mostly stays out of the action. (This is a good thing in my opinion; I like his solutions but he can be a tiresome character.)

I also read recently by this author: A Caribbean Mystery

Heather the Totality

 Fiction by Matthew Weiner.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a short but interesting story about an ordinary couple who produced an extraordinary daughter. Heather is loved by all, and by age fifteen is beautiful and kind, brightening the days of everyone around her. But Heather's bright light of a life is threatened by an unknown predator. Can she be saved?

This story would make a great movie. It was a bit too short, but I liked it.

Big Time

 Fiction by Ben Winters

https://www.audible.com

At the beginning of this exciting story, twenty-something-year-old Allie is kidnapped and being taken to an unknown location by a mysterious woman who refuses to speak to her. Meanwhile, Grace Burney, a middle-aged FDA bureaucrat who takes care of both her elderly mother and her teenaged child on her own, is called in to work after hours to decipher a problem for her boss. These two women's stories will intersect in an extraordinary way.

This was a really good thriller. I loved it!!

I also read by this author: The Last Policeman

Secret Lives

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Eden Riley is a successful actress with a young daughter who has just gone through a divorce. Her ex-husband claims she is unknowable and incapable of intimacy, and while Eden does not believe that is true, she acknowledges to herself that she is much more comfortable in the artificial world of Hollywood pretending than she is within real relationships. 

She decides to try to delve into her past a bit as a possible remedy for this trouble, and announces that she will begin working on a film about her famously reclusive mother Katherine Swift. In this way she hopes to keep a semblance of professional distance from the more painful aspects of her own past, but will that actually be possible?

This was a really good book!

I also read recently by this author: Reflection

Everything Sad is Untrue

 Fiction by Daniel Nayeri

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

The cover of this book asserts that it is a true story, even though it's classified officially as a young adult novel. This is because it's a memoir that cannot be independently verified, I think, because it is indeed the true story of the author's childhood history.

Daniel was born in Iran, and he was named Khosrou and his family was wealthy. But when he was about five, his mother converted to Christianity and had to flee the country with him and his sister, leaving behind everything in order to live in poverty in Oklahoma instead. In this book, 12-year-old Daniel is trying to explain his origins to a class full of kids who don't know the different between Iran and Iraq, and think that his lunches smell weird.

It's an amazing story. I don't know why it is called "Everything Sad is Untrue," though. I would pick a different title.

Reflection

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In this story, Rachel Huber returns to Reflection, Pennsylvania, to care for her aging grandmother; however, the little town is not much inclined to welcome her back. Over twenty years ago, a tragic accident had claimed ten young lives, and many townspeople think Rachel was to blame. Can she uncover the truth about what really happened?

This was good story with great characters. I did feel like the twists were a little over the top, although it was a very enjoyable book.

I also read by this author: Breaking the Silence

Becoming Chloe

 Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Jordan is living on the streets when he meets a damaged girl who doesn't like her real name, so she decides to be called Chloe. He works hard to take care of her, but soon learns that just changing Chloe's name doesn't change all the bad things that have happened to her. Desperate to save her, Jordan embarks on a quest to show Chloe the good and beautiful things of the world, and eventually learns how to see them for himself.

After several books I didn't like, I went to this author I always enjoy, and she did not disappoint. Great characters and a good story!

I also read recently by this author: Electric God

When She was Me

 Fiction by Marlee Bush

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Identical twins Cassie and Lenora live in the woods, far from civilization, and try to forget their traumatic past. But then Sarah buys the campground cabin they rent, and she, along with some weekend visitors somehow bring back bad memories, for both Cassie the protector, and Lenora the damaged girl.

When tragedy strikes, is it one of the twins who is responsible? And what really happened in their troubled past?

I didn't really like this book; it was hard to care about the characters. And when the "surprise" ending finally came, it seemed too far-fetched. I did finish it, though...

The Truth About the Devlins

 Fiction by Lisa Scottoline

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

TJ Devlin is the black sheep of the successful Devlin family, who all work together at the family law firm. When TJ's brother John asks him for help, TJ is glad to do it, and also maybe a little glad to not be the one screwing up this time. But John's in more trouble than he has let on, and he may end up casting TJ as the screwup once again.

This book had a new annoying plot device that seems to be a combination of two I've already identified. (See below.) I think I'll call it "My-Guy-Can't-Catch-a-Break-Syndrome." 

It's where the protagonist falls into the trap of his enemy (whom he doesn't know is an enemy), gets blamed for everything that the enemy set him up to take the fall for, and then everyone refuses to believe in his innocence. The reader sees the trap coming ("Oh-No-I-Can't-Look-Syndrome"*) and all other characters are staunchly against the protagonist, who is sure he is right ("Hell-Bent-Syndrome."**) 

The story comes out all right at the end but it's kind of an unpleasant ride.

I also read and liked much better by this author: What Happened to the Bennetts

**Hell-Bent Syndrome

(See Come Home by Lisa Scottoline)

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...")

*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.

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House

 Fiction by Cherie Jones

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Lala's grandmother Wilma tried to raise her right and keep her out of trouble. Still, sometimes young girls go looking for trouble, and Lala found it at not-quite-eighteen when she got pregnant and married bad-boy Adan. So Wilma washed her hands of the girl, and never acknowledged that some of the things she should have protected Lala from were in her own house. Things don't get better for Lala or her baby, either...

This book is set in Barbados, and I loved how truthful the depiction of that island seemed. I also liked most of the characters, but I didn't like how none of the nice ones could seem to catch a break. It was a really bleak story.

Duma Key

 Fiction by Stephen King

https://www.audible.com

Edgar Freemantle loses his right arm in a freak accident that also leaves him with a major head injury. On top of that, his wife of over 25 years decides to divorce him. Edgar wants to end it all, but settles for a change of location, renting a beach house on isolated Duma Key, a Florida island.

Once Edgar is on the island, however, strange things begin to happen, Did Edgar choose to go to Duma, or did Duma choose him?

This was an interesting and kind of frightening story. I loved the characters.

I also read recently by this author: End of Watch

That’s Not Right

 Fiction by Scott Meyer

https://www.audible.com

Youtube-style videographer Amber has always been a fan of late-night talk radio host Jack Owens. So when she gets a chance to take Jack's show "That's Not Right" to internet video, she's all for it. It's a great idea, she thinks. But it turns out Jack Owens doesn't agree.

This was a funny little set of stories that tied together well. I enjoyed it.

I also listened to by this author: Spell or High Water

After Death

 Fiction by Dean Koontz 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Michael Mace dies at the beginning of this story, but he doesn't stay dead.

This is not a zombie book, however. Michael comes back as Something Else, but he's also still Michael. 

It's a pretty interesting story, and in classic Koontz style you never have to wonder who the good guys and bad guys are. It's quite clear; if Michael were wearing a literal halo (and the bad guys forked tails) it would not be more plain.

This story has good characters and an interesting plot.

I also read recently by this author: The Bad Weather Friend

The Surgeon

 Fiction by Tess Gerristen

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This book is listed a the first in the Rizzoli and Isles series, and I suppose it is; however, it actually just features detective Jane Rizzoli before she teams up with the other woman. 

This story is about a serial killer called "The Surgeon" who kills women and then removes their wombs. Ewww....

It's a pretty good mystery, but there's a bit more ick (and also more boring parts) than I like. I've read a few by this author and some I like better than others.

I also read by this author: Playing with Fire

Demon Copperhead

 Fiction by Barbara Kingsolver

https://www.audible.com

I have never read David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, but supposedly this is a modern retelling. It's not necessary to know Dickens to understand this book, however. The idea that systemic poverty negatively affects children is not new, although Dickens did more to shine a light on it than anyone before him I think. Unfortunately, as Ms. Kingsolver, points out, it's a problem that has yet to be solved.  

Demon Copperhead is a nickname for a boy named Damon who lives with a single mom in Appalachia. He is born into poverty and lives through foster care, neglect, and worse. 

I really loved the characters in this story. The narrator was amazing as well.

I also read by this author: Unsheltered

The Hike

 Fiction by Drew Magary

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Ben is away from his home in Maryland on a business trip when he takes a small hike and ends up very far from where he expected. Instead of a wooded trail in Pennsylvania, he is... Somewhere else...

This was a very strange book that leaves the reader wondering what is really happening and what Ben is imagining. It was interesting.

Company of Liars

 Fiction by Karen Maitland

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Subtitled "a novel of the plague," this was an odd sort of book. It follows a group of people in the fourteenth century on the road and trying to get somewhere safe. There's a mystery as well, sort of.

The characters were really good and I enjoyed them. I wasn't sure about the ending.