Fiction by Holly Kennedy
At the beginning of this story, Kenly is facing the fact that she must tell her husband a secret she has kept from him for over thirteen years. Then the narrative goes back in time to Kenly's difficult childhood and the experiences that shaped her.
I really liked the characters in this book, especially Kenly. The reader could understand her and her secrets easily. It was a good story but I'm not sure if the structure the author used was the best choice.
Venus Griffin is a real estate agent in my local area who advertises on billboards like a lawyer. Recently she advertised that she had written a memoir, in addition to being a million-dollar realtor. So I ordered her book on amazon kindle.
I didn't know anything much about Venus Griffin besides her picture on the billboard, but this was a very interesting memoir. She definitely spilled all the secrets in her life! It was a pretty good read.
Fiction by Chang-Rae Lee
This story is about a young Korean boy named Jeon-Gi in 1970's New York. Its written as if it's a memoir, with present-day grown J-G remembering what had happened in his childhood, so it may be semi- autobiographical.
It was well-written, in that everything was described meticulously well and the characters were realistic, but I didn't much like Jeon-Gi and I really disliked the things that happened in the story. I wanted to give up midway through the book but soldiered on to get to the ending; it wasn't worth it. The ending was abrupt and unclear.
I see from reviews that many people really loved this book but I did not.
Fiction by Claire Mackintosh
At the beginning of this story, a little boy is walking home from school in the rain with his mother. They are almost home when he lets go of her hand and dashes across the street, just as a car comes speeding down the quiet residential street. The child is killed instantly, and the car awkwardly does a couple of three-point-turns and speeds away from the scene.
The police are carefully investigating but the mother expects no resolution. Wracked with guilt and despair, she packs up and moves away, leaving no forwarding address. But the police detectives are relentless and eventually they will find the truth...
This was an interesting book with several surprises. I loved the big twist near the end, but there was one final twist that I thought went past believability, Still, it was a good story.
Fiction by Liane Moriarty
This is the sequel to the bestseller Big Little Lies, which was also made into a hit HBO series. At the beginning the author's note makes it clear that this is a sequel to the book and not the TV show, which is good because I read the book and didn't see the show.
The story here picks up ten years after the last one left off; the kids who were sweet five-year-olds in the first book are now angsty teenagers, but the moms are still close friends. A lot of things happen and there are several surprises.
I loved this book!
I also read recently by this author: Here One Moment
Fiction by Simon Van Booy
In the beginning of this story, 83-year-old Helen Cartwright has returned to the English village of her birth after more than six decades spent in Australia. She has come back to die alone, thinking that she has nor more purpose left in life after the death of her husband and her son. But she may be wrong about that...
This was a sweet little story. I liked it, although it was a little slow.
Fiction by Matt Dinman
Oliver Lewis is a colonist on a distant planet, a third-generation farmer who has no memories of Earth and only knows it from stories told by old people. He and his neighbors run their homestead farms with the help of robot technology and are doing fine on their own. But suddenly the faraway planet Earth is back around to meddle in their lives. Earth has decided to take an eviction action against the colonists, labeling them rebel terrorists and trying to kill them all. So Oliver and his friends are going to have to figure out how to defend themselves.
I really liked the beginning of this book but I had trouble with the middle. It got bogged down in war details and lost a lot of the character-driven dialogue and action. Still, it was okay.
I also read recently by this author: Dungeon Crawler Carl
This book is literally what the subtitle says: Registered Nurse Theresa Brown meticulously describes one of her twelve-hour shifts at the hospital inpatient oncology ward.
It was both less boring and less dramatic than I expected. The writing style made it interesting even though it was a lot of mundane details, but I expected her to choose a shift where someone died, or was dramatically saved, or something like that. Instead it was a pretty normal shift, which I assume was the author's goal.
Fiction by Ingrid Hill
At the beginning of this story, two-year-old Ursula Wong is on a picnic with her parents in the woods when she falls down an old disused well, or mineshaft, or something. Her parents Annie and Justin are frantic and immediately call for help.
While little Ursula waits for rescue, the reader is taken back in time, WAY back, to visit Ursula's ancestors in ancient China, and long-ago Finland, and many other places and times. All those people who lived and died over many centuries have led to this one little girl, who is the apple of her parents' eyes and now in grave danger. The idea I think is that Ursula Wong, like every child, is a miracle and incredibly irreplaceable.
This was a strange book and a long one, but still worth reading, I think.
Fiction by Saratoga Schaefer
Cyra Griffin is searching for her sister Mira's killer, and she somehow manages to infiltrate a so-called Serial Killer Support Group, seven men who connected on the Dark Web and meet in secret. Cyra has to pretend to be one of them in order to find out which man murdered her sister.
Okay, so this book requires some serious suspension of disbelief. I really don't buy the idea that serial killers would meet regularly like this to discuss their activities, but for the sake of the story I was willing to let that go. Mostly.
If you can swallow the premise, this is a pretty good story with a surprise ending.
