Hidden

Nonfiction by Cathy Glass

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Ten-year-old Tayo is taken into foster care right after Christmas. After several changes of address over the first school term, his mother had ditched him with friends and disappeared for two weeks over the holidays, then retrieved him without so much as a thank-you. Then she turned up drunk for court as a final straw.

As Tayo's mother seems to get more and more irresponsible, it's up to foster carer Cathy Glass to find out what's best for Tayo. But there's a further complication: Tayo was born in another country, and he and his mother seem to have come to Britain illegally.

This was a good story with a surprise ending.

I also read recently by this author: Too Scared to Tell

Dade County Death Cruise

Audible Original Fiction by Alexander Kane

https://www.audible.com

This book is the sequel to Orlando People, and I absolutely loved it! This story continues the tale of Gretch Wolgast, now 23 years old and a newly-minted agent in a newly-formed branch of the FBI that specializes in crime related to telekinesis. (It's a thing in these stories; read the first book!)

This is a super fun book!

I also listened to recently by Audible Originals: Andrea Vernon and the Big Axe Acquisition

Nowhere Girl

Nonfiction by Cheryl Diamond

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was an exciting memoir of the “harrowing ordeal childhood” variety. (See also The Glass Castle, Spilled Milk, and The Sound of Gravel for other great examples of this type of story.)

The author grew up all over the world, changing identities as her family fled from an unknown threat, which might have been Interpol, or it might have been in her father's imagination. 

This was an absorbing story!

So Long See You Tomorow

 Fiction by William Maxwell

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1921 Lloyd Wilson is shot and killed outside his barn before he has a chance to milk the cows. This happens on page one of this short novel, and the rest of the book is mostly about why the murder happened.

The story is told in a strange way; the narrator is a boy in town who befriends the son of the murderer. The identity of the killer is never in doubt; this book is in no way a mystery. It's more about a person trying to come to terms with the past and reconcile with his own regrets.

This novel was well written, short but dense. Still, I thought the story could have been told in a less convoluted way and it might have been more easily understood. This is obviously a Smart Person Book,** and the goal with this type of writing is often to make the meaning of the text so difficult that only Smart People can understand. Therefore obfuscation is probably the author's goal, but it makes for less enjoyable reading in my opinion. 

So this book was pretty good but not great.

I also read by this author: They Came Like Swallows

**For explanation of The Smart Person Book, see Imagine Me Gone. In contrast, the last book I read (See Empire Falls) actually won a Pulitzer, but it was much more readable and still had a lot of depth. So we conclude that a Smart Person Book doesn't require these annoying affectations, but the more pretentious of authors just believes that it does.

Empire Falls

 Fiction by Richard Russo

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Empire Falls is a town built around a mill that is controlled by one rich and powerful family, the Whitings. But, like many other mill towns around America, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is almost dead. The mill has long since been closed, the work outsourced to a factory in Mexico, and most of the businesses are shuttered and abandoned.

But the last Mrs. Whiting is still in control. She owns almost every piece of real estate in town and likes to believe she owns all the people too. In particular, she owns the Empire Grill restaurant, and its cook and manager Miles Roby stays at her beck and call, bound by a mixture of guilt and habit to a job he hates and a town he no longer loves.  

Will Miles break free? Or will he stay, and maybe marry Mrs. Whiting's only daughter? This is a really good story!

I also read by this author: Elsewhere

The Best of Friends

 Fiction by Lucinda Berry. 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Lindsey, Kendra, and Dani have been best friends since they were girls in school, and now that they are mothers their friendship is still strong. Their teenage sons are of similar age and are close friends as well; the boys are in the same soccer team and often sleeping over at each others’ houses. But when a sleepover party leaves one boy dead and one hospitalized in a coma, the friendship of the mothers is stretched to the breaking point. 

Only Dani’s son Caleb remains safe at home, and everyone is looking to him for answers as to what happened to his two friends. But Caleb hasn’t spoken since the night of the incident. What really happened between the three boys? And will their families survive this?

This was an exciting story with believable characters, and it also gave me something to think about. 

I also read recently by this author: The Perfect Child

The Stolen Daughter

 Fiction by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Jill's problems are piling up at the beginning of this story: her mom has dementia, her husband lost his job, and she has a new baby. When an older man approaches her, thinking she might be his long-lost daughter, will he have the answers to her troubles?

I started listening to this story as an audiobook, and I could not STAND the narrator! I couldn't decide if that was why I disliked the book, though. Then I ordered the book from the library and I liked reading it. So... yeah, it was the narrator...

I also read by this author: The Secret She Kept