tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31799865741635964002024-03-24T02:11:10.182-05:00Hungry for Good Books?Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.comBlogger320125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-30637329279369786232024-01-21T09:16:00.000-06:002024-01-21T09:16:41.987-06:00The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d9577a9a-2c86-c197-ce40-ac80a7db8ae2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif9uvD-K6faNlHz-U0uWb6QFrSwmCoZ6pfF_vG4UKO8Hj4JVBGEu7WO1dIy5OYvzB3pOeCP4pZWf-CqmonufkmswM15KjF9ABg4YJS1K98jsD7RNrA5giGd-XbeC79jzZU-W2MCo2bwWbu4Lmf35hPMnjrO8En7zJYygL5eq1aMskifKGME2DoJI3CXmM/s450/IMG_1762.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif9uvD-K6faNlHz-U0uWb6QFrSwmCoZ6pfF_vG4UKO8Hj4JVBGEu7WO1dIy5OYvzB3pOeCP4pZWf-CqmonufkmswM15KjF9ABg4YJS1K98jsD7RNrA5giGd-XbeC79jzZU-W2MCo2bwWbu4Lmf35hPMnjrO8En7zJYygL5eq1aMskifKGME2DoJI3CXmM/s320/IMG_1762.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d9577a9a-2c86-c197-ce40-ac80a7db8ae2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Waters </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Bonnie Jo Campbell is a Brothers Grimm fairy tale-like rendition of a rural noir narrative with exquisite descriptions of the land and the people formed by it. Hermine “Herself” Zook has three daughters. Primrose, the eldest, is a driven, justice-seeking California lawyer. Mary Rose, called Molly, is a rigid, church-going nurse who lives nearby. Rose Thorn, who’s lazy and beautiful, is desired by most men in their area of southwest Michigan. Eleven-year-old Dorothy, Hermine’s granddaughter called Donkey, because she was fed donkey milk when she was born, lives with Hermine on her island in the midst of vast wetlands. Donkey is a genius who loves math, has never been to school, and has the characteristics of a woodland sprite. <i>The Waters </i>is set within 6,000 acres of state-protected land near the fictional town of Whiteheart, Michigan where Hermine cleverly restricts access to her island home.</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d9577a9a-2c86-c197-ce40-ac80a7db8ae2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Campbell’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once Upon a River </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is one of my long-time favorite novels and </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Waters </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is reminiscent of that book in its gorgeous rendering of the land, the people who populate it, and the strength and resilience built into the main characters. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Waters </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">opens like a fairy tale with “Once upon a time M’Sauga Island was the place desperate mothers abandoned baby girls and where young women went seeking to prevent babies altogether.” </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Waters</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> highlights the importance of women having the right and ability to determine if they should have children while also celebrating women who choose to have them and caring for the children themselves.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Waters </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is slow to build and readers desiring a fast-paced novel won’t find it here. What they will find is a deep and abiding concern for taking care of our land and for making sure that we heal the earth and those it harms when our byproducts do damage. Campbell explores the elusiveness of these tasks:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“In the Michigan state government, environmental protections were relaxed, and the plans to clean up the mounds of paper mill waste in the Waters were delayed for lack of funding. The legislature justified these decisions by saying they would instead institute tax breaks to benefit businesses, although no business in Whiteheart benefitted from the lower taxes. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Whiteheart post office closed that winter, so everybody now had to drive eight or ten miles around the Waters to the Potawatomi branch, and people missed talking to their neighbors while waiting in line. Teenagers, always the most creative and innovative members of any community, learned how to cook methamphetamine over burn barrel fires. A handful of girls cut themselves secretly with razor blades for the rush of sensation it gave them, and one boy shot himself in the head with his father’s pistol because of how some other kids talked to him at school. He didn’t die, but people said maybe he should have, given how he ended up.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Waters </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to enjoy its portrait of rural southern Michigan, reap its environmental insights, and meet Donkey, a unique, otherworldly character. Stick with it for its caring ending and the way it tells the story slant. If you haven’t read </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once Upon a River, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rectify that immediately. Campbell is one of our best writers, a National Book Award finalist, and a strong supporter of the environment. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Waters </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a “Read with Jenna” Book Club selection.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Note: Jenna Bush Hager of the Today Show’s “Read with Jenna” Book Club says “if you loved </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where the Crawdads Sing, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you’re going to love, and I’m saying love, our first read of 2024.” I didn’t find the books to be that similar other than on the surface. Yes, both feature precocious girls in rural settings, but </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Waters </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a meditation with an otherworldly feel whereas </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where the Crawdads Sing </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is primarily a murder mystery with a realistic exploration of flora and fauna. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 4 Stars </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: January 9, 2024</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Fiction, Gourmet, Super Nutrition, Book Club</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 2.38464; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://www.bonniejocampbell.net/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.bonniejocampbell.net/</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 2.38464; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 2.38464; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Foreword Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/the-waters/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/the-waters/</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 2.38464; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/bonnie-jo-campbell/the-waters/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/bonnie-jo-campbell/the-waters/</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 2.38464; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Los Angeles Times: </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2024-01-03/an-off-the-grid-herbalist-hits-the-skids-in-an-earthy-new-bonnie-jo-campbell-novel" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2024-01-03/an-off-the-grid-herbalist-hits-the-skids-in-an-earthy-new-bonnie-jo-campbell-novel</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 2.38464; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Washington Post: </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/12/27/bonnie-jo-campbell-waters-book-review/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/12/27/bonnie-jo-campbell-waters-book-review/</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 2.38464; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Baggy writing, drawn-out scenes, and twee character names aren’t doing this story any favors, but Campbell’s immersive descriptions manage to suck the reader into its swampy setting. Patient readers will be carried away.” —Publishers Weekly</span></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-27563711332579068272024-01-09T17:15:00.004-06:002024-01-09T22:30:54.259-06:00California Bear by Duane Swierczynski<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAeGf9y2QUp3Bkd5H8JC6uGGAK0rYdh9u3AIDkhxx2pn2g6RdFxdQEGLAvTS-8b_tdQwNdVIIt3caHqGFdDWphsiPBSiO5kv_Apjjnj7BFSlv0WmTit9z4oM6zyJQ1Hrn1Vo-Gh0C60QsbVbAyCfc7U48dnFXf5ApPeFEvOZOtVcAmycbzw2cyC7vzqRY/s1024/IMG_1752.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="660" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAeGf9y2QUp3Bkd5H8JC6uGGAK0rYdh9u3AIDkhxx2pn2g6RdFxdQEGLAvTS-8b_tdQwNdVIIt3caHqGFdDWphsiPBSiO5kv_Apjjnj7BFSlv0WmTit9z4oM6zyJQ1Hrn1Vo-Gh0C60QsbVbAyCfc7U48dnFXf5ApPeFEvOZOtVcAmycbzw2cyC7vzqRY/s320/IMG_1752.jpeg" width="206" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-6c014da3-f07e-7f57-4a44-c37e3eb8c5c8" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">California Bear </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by twice Edgar-nominated Duane Swierczynski is my first of Swierczynski’s books, but it won't be my last. I can't wait to read everything he’s written. The mystery begins when Jack Queen, who’s served ten years in prison for a supposed revenge killing of running over a man implicated in Queen’s wife's death, is released from prison. Cato Hightower, a wild ex-cop, spearheaded the effort to overturn Jack’s conviction and Hightower expects Queen to reward him by helping him blackmail the infamous “California Bear.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-6c014da3-f07e-7f57-4a44-c37e3eb8c5c8" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The book begins with the Bear himself ruminating: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The California Bear, a serial torturer-murderer who had eluded justice for close to four decades, wanted a cookie.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He really shouldn't. Not with the diabetes and all. And he knew his wife would kill him if she found out he had raided her secret stash. But what was life without the little indulgences?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The man was seventy-two years old. Back when he was the Bear, he liked to bind his victims with ligatures he found around their homes (extension cords, shoe laces, medical tubing) and beat them senseless with his meaty fists. But right now, all this man cared about was pushing aside the rows of grease-flecked cookbooks on the top shelf over the fridge to gain access to the motherlode: a family-size package of Nutter Butters—his wife’s favorite.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jack Queen’s only desire is to see his fourteen-year-old daughter Matilda who’s in the hospital after recently being diagnosed with leukemia. Matilda, a genius who refers to herself as “The Girl Detective,” doesn't know if her dad is a killer:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“And when the Girl Detective looked him in the eyes in a couple of days, she would ask him the question she’d been too young (and too frightened) to ask at the time of his trial:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Did you do it?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">truly </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">believe him, however, and repair their fractured relationship, the Girl Detective would have to discover the truth for herself.”</span></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Queen and Hightower are inept blackmailers and the California Bear seems likely to escape their “gang that can't shoot straight” attempts to get the money Hightower thinks the Bear possesses until a twist that only someone with Swierczynski’s talent and creativity could imagine takes place. </span></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up:</span></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Each character in this tour de force is unique, entertaining, and like no other you've encountered. This phenomenal, intelligent mystery has enough plot twists, engaging characters, and “aha” moments filled with both compassion and desert-dry humor to please even the most discerning reader. And that ending: it's clever, kind, and exceptional. I’m begging Mr. Swierczynski for a sequel with Matilda in the starring role. </span></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 5 Stars </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: January 9, 2024</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Mysteries and Thrillers, Sushi with Green Tea Sorbet, Book Club</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Blog:</span><a href="https://andymozina.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://secretdead.blogspot.com/</span></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Library Journal: </span><a href="https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/california-bear-1802499" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/california-bear-1802499</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publishers Weekly: </span><a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/9780316382977" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.publishersweekly.com/9780316382977</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This book was written straight from the heart and I won't ever forget it.” Eli Cranor, author of </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t Know Tough </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ozark Dogs</span> </p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-56300403703056950292024-01-05T06:55:00.000-06:002024-01-05T06:55:43.066-06:00Murder Outside the Box by Saralyn Richard<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm_UFf5tlT9bFBCI2_qm46Sz7FgiMWyawktC8lko-NuyArGZbO6IOHudwwjqbd45I8qDbSVi9A2HDl917Bnhvd_xDCg8il7HGhAC2IbLdRSRdae56Fb8lFsYc_-9EoE1CiM9JJdb9IHwpdiv4fdiPv0YYjcu80qFhJa0tnXG8HJVFvLMh44iryvb3pOiY/s800/IMG_1739.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="583" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm_UFf5tlT9bFBCI2_qm46Sz7FgiMWyawktC8lko-NuyArGZbO6IOHudwwjqbd45I8qDbSVi9A2HDl917Bnhvd_xDCg8il7HGhAC2IbLdRSRdae56Fb8lFsYc_-9EoE1CiM9JJdb9IHwpdiv4fdiPv0YYjcu80qFhJa0tnXG8HJVFvLMh44iryvb3pOiY/s320/IMG_1739.png" width="233" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b1d7734b-bb99-6837-4390-4efc1ddd1375" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Murder Outside the Box </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the fourth entry in the Detective Parrott mystery series that began with <i>Murder </i></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://hungryforgoodbooks.blogspot.com/2018/02/">in the One Percent</a>. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Set in the Brandywine area near Philadelphia, the mystery begins when Detective Oliver Parrott responds to a call about a baby left in a cardboard box with two bottles of breast milk on the doorstep of a caretaker’s cottage on a sprawling estate. When Parrott sees the longing in the reaction to the baby from the childless young woman who lives with her caretaker husband in the cottage, he wonders if her desire for a child might have anything to do with the baby. He later ponders whether he might be viewing the scene through his own circumstances as he has recently learned that a possible fertility problem may interfere with his wife’s and his ability to have children. </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b1d7734b-bb99-6837-4390-4efc1ddd1375" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The plot intensifies when a young woman who’d recently given birth is found dead in a remote area on a nearby estate owned by a billionaire Scotch whiskey baron. DNA evidence shows that the baby and the woman are not related and Parrott seeks clues in the breast milk left with the baby. Parrott and the forensic team supporting him engage with sophisticated tools and a clever collaborative effort to determine the identities of the woman and child and to find the woman’s killer.</span></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Saralyn Richard offers convincing red herrings that add to the suspense while providing the reader with information leading to the determination of whodunit without sacrificing character development or insight into why the murder was committed. The book also shares fascinating information about fertility, DNA, and databases.</span></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up: Read </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Murder Outside the Box </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to follow one of my favorite characters, Detective Oliver Parrott, as he solves another mystery. Settle in on a long winter’s night to a tale that will challenge your detecting ability while offering an escape from the dreary days. Play along with Detective Parrott as he looks for evidence and clues “outside the box” to solve a murder that seems impossible to resolve.</span></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A note: I first met Saralyn Richard on a baseball field when both our sons were young. She later moved to Texas and I became reacquainted with her when a favorite publicist sent me a review copy of <i>Murder in the One Percent </i>believing I would enjoy it, which I </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">did. I share that and the fact that when I begin reading a book, I immerse myself in the characters and setting and rarely think about the author or anything else. So, when I came across a minor character, a journalist named Trina Hayes, in </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Murder Outside the Box</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I first considered it a simple coincidence. A paragraph later, I recalled that Saralyn was the book’s author and realized that she had most likely used my name with intention. I am grateful for the honor. I also applaud her sharing information about fertility in the novel. As one of many grandparents of children who exist because of science and the team at Northwestern Medicine Center for Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Chicago, I am most appreciative.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 5 Stars </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: January 5, 2024</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Mysteries and Thrillers, Book Club</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website:</span><a href="https://andymozina.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></a><a href="http://www.saralynrichard.com/index.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.saralynrichard.com/index.html</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Insight: </span><a href="https://blackbirdwriters.com/saralyn-richard-on-all-about-babies/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://blackbirdwriters.com/saralyn-richard-on-all-about-babies/</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Interview with the Author: </span><a href="https://youtu.be/Up-ogLNc9g8?si=sJo_bZ8jcM5an440">https://youtu.be/Up-ogLNc9g8?si=sJo_bZ8jcM5an440</a> </p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A masterful mystery. move it to the top of your reading list.” Avanti Centrae, best-selling author of the VanOps thriller series</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.9872; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“When an abandoned baby is found outside a cottage, not far from where a woman who might be the mother lies dead, Detective Parrott displays out-of-the-box thinking, as he endeavors to solve the murder and determine the baby’s parentage. Richard keeps the reader guessing while conveying the meticulous nature of police work. Reproduction and parenthood are just a few issues Parrott must deal with in the case and in his own marriage. Full of twists and surprises, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Murder Outside the Box </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a great addition to this series.” Debbie Mack, New York Times best-selling author of the Sam McRae and Erica Jensen mystery series</span></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-40759364334174323952024-01-04T09:22:00.003-06:002024-01-04T15:50:16.185-06:00The Best Books of 2023<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL0aY3RFrr6gppLF4UqA9bK1uqLibvV_vTPXlzyps9zunZ5IV3YDPkvsYVuwG7QmtJHYfU3JX_rWhJBjOL5Vu9IyWDdqa9y96DuWg7NUuwGfLEjh4owsL8saXC4J8YjuQ7haSZ6hyiJOGq4YeK1MjByyk7hgeqrgz_YG15AVdW15xnHSgmVYS0ZqlfNcU/s718/IMG_1698.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="718" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL0aY3RFrr6gppLF4UqA9bK1uqLibvV_vTPXlzyps9zunZ5IV3YDPkvsYVuwG7QmtJHYfU3JX_rWhJBjOL5Vu9IyWDdqa9y96DuWg7NUuwGfLEjh4owsL8saXC4J8YjuQ7haSZ6hyiJOGq4YeK1MjByyk7hgeqrgz_YG15AVdW15xnHSgmVYS0ZqlfNcU/s320/IMG_1698.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">Still Life with Books and Candle by Henri Matisse</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In 2023, I read over 70 books that I thought were outstanding, so narrowing them down to just a few is an arbitrary choice based on my personal preferences in this moment. Ask me tomorrow, and the list might change. Presented below are my favorites—those I found phenomenal. Whether you’re in a position to sit down and read without distraction or if you can only snare the time to read or listen to a few pages without having to attend to the duties that keep you afloat, this list has something for you. There are books to comfort you, books to challenge you, books to make you laugh, and those that will make you cry. Wishing you a year in which you find the right book for the space you inhabit at the time. Descriptions of each title appear <a href="http://hungryforgoodbooks.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-annual-list2023-edition.html">here.</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>My Top Five Novels of 2023:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Berry Pickers </i>by Amanda Peters</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Good Night, Irene </i>by Luis Alberto Urrea</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Hello, Beautiful </i>by Ann Napolitano</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>This Other Eden</i> by Paul Harding</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Tom Lake </i>by Ann Patchett</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Honorable Mention Best Novels of 2023: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Banyan Moon </i>by Thao Thai</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Caretaker </i>by Ron Rash</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Cloud Cuckoo Land </i>by Anthony Doerr (2021)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Dinosaurs </i>by Lydia Millet (2022)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Happiness Falls </i>by Angie Kim</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store </i>by James McBride</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Let Us Descend </i>by Jesmyn Ward</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Maame </i>by Jessica George</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Measure </i>by Nikki Erlick (2022)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven </i>by Nathaniel Ian Miller (2021)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Signal Fires </i>by Dani Shapiro (2022)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Take What You Need </i>by Idra Novey</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Tandem </i>by Andy Mozina</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Best Debut Fiction of 2023:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Berry Pickers </i>by Amanda Peters</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Honorable Mention Best Debut Fiction of 2023:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Banyan Moon </i>by Thao Thai</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Countries of Origin </i>by Javier Fuentes</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Maame </i>by Jessica George</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Measure </i>by Nikki Erlick (2022)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven </i>by Nathaniel Ian Miller (2021)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Memphis </i>by Tara Stringfellow (2022)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Pineapple Street </i>by Jenny Jackson</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Best Historical Fiction (Pigeon Pie) Books of 2023:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Berry Pickers</i> by Amanda Peters</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Good Night, Irene </i>by Luis Alberto Urrea</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven </i>by Nathaniel Ian Miller (2021)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>This Other Eden </i>by Paul Harding</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Honorable Mention Best Historical Fiction of 2023:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Absolution </i>by Alice McDermott</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Because I Loved You </i>by Donnaldson Brown</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Covenant of Water </i>by Abraham Verghese</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Forger of Marseille </i>by Linda Joy Myers</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>From Dust to Stardust </i>by Kathleeen Rooney</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store </i>by James McBride</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Horse </i>by Geraldine Brooks (2022)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Künstlers in Paradise </i>by Cathleen Schine</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Let Us Descend </i>by Jesmyn Ward</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Mercury Pictures Presents </i>by Anthony Marra</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Best Dessert, Pick-Me-Up Books of 2023:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Found in a Bookshop </i>by Stephanie Butland</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>500 Miles from You </i>by Jenny Colgan (2020)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Music of the Bees </i>by Eileen Garvin (2022)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Museum of Ordinary People </i>by Mike Gayle</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Pineapple Street </i>by Jenny Jackson</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Best Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers of 2023:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>All the Sinners Bleed </i>by S. A. Cosby</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Don’t Know Tough </i>by Eli Cranor (2022)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>I Have Some Questions for You </i>by Rebecca Makkai</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Notes on an Execution</i> by Danya Kukafka (2022)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Ozark Dogs </i>by Eli Cranor</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Honorable Mention Best Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers of 2023:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Distant Sons </i>by Tom Johnston</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Everybody Knows </i>by Jordan Harper</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Last Devil to Die </i>by Richard Osman</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Reykjavik </i>by Ragnar Jónasson and Katrin Jakobsdóttir</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Symphony of Secrets </i>by Brendan Slocumb</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>The Best Nonfiction of 2023:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>The Art Thief: a True Story of Love, Crime and a Dangerous Obsession </i>by Michael Finkel</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Class: a Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education </i>by Stephanie Land</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Grateful: the Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks</i> by Diana Butler Bass (2018)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>A Living Remedy </i>by Nicole Chung</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Smile </i>by Sarah Ruhl (2021)</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Best Young Adult Novel of 2023</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>All My Rage </i>by Sabaa Tahir (2022)</b></div></span><p></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-80650172233400648052023-12-01T07:18:00.001-06:002023-12-18T15:34:55.474-06:00The Annual List—2023 Edition<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXgWdVI18yb2PKMQSHALu-7YmOq0rpTIwngnBozWN8Hzpr8C7Vm7Lmz12GY8JQE-dsBPQfB3L8ASVNghXmZ7rxPqiQ1WoHMZoavYdCFzkACXFTFSMwjX1gHqlQEBfBiJdzYYXvrjA5-RyYqdNVo8pgaJk5CG8Ilu9HgwNfyybLK8pTy_YSyAoXOwamRaM/s867/IMG_1697.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="867" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXgWdVI18yb2PKMQSHALu-7YmOq0rpTIwngnBozWN8Hzpr8C7Vm7Lmz12GY8JQE-dsBPQfB3L8ASVNghXmZ7rxPqiQ1WoHMZoavYdCFzkACXFTFSMwjX1gHqlQEBfBiJdzYYXvrjA5-RyYqdNVo8pgaJk5CG8Ilu9HgwNfyybLK8pTy_YSyAoXOwamRaM/s320/IMG_1697.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>“The Yellow Books” painting by Vincent Van Gogh, pictured above, reminds me of my year of reading. I was often surrounded by stacks of beckoning titles that accompanied me through the year. My life, like most lives, was filled with days spent rushing from one task to another alongside times when I sat waiting for appointments or for people to complete work and I was grateful for books that didn't require concentration. Thankfully, the busy days and those spent waiting often ended with hours enveloped by exceptional titles I was able to devour without interruption on my screened porch or inside with my feet perched on my favorite ottoman. May you find just the right book to fill your hunger when you most need it.</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-f4add8c0-2084-8944-3b00-7aa81bec1f53" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hungry for Good Books? Annual Book List, 2023</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">©Copyright December 1, 2023, by Trina Hayes</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Letters after each selection designate the book as CC: Chinese Carryout (page-turners, great for plane rides), D: Desserts (delightful indulgences), DC: Diet Coke and Gummi Bears (books for teens and young adults), G: Gourmet (exquisite writing, requires concentration), GPR: Grandma’s Pot Roast (books that get your attention and stick with you), GS: Grits (evocative of the American south), OC: Over Cooked (good ingredients, but overwritten), PBJ: Peanut Butter and Jelly (children’s books adults will like), PP: Pigeon Pie (historical fiction, parts or all of the novel set at least 50 years ago), R: Road Food (audio books for road trips and more), S: Sushi with Green Tea Sorbet (satire, irony, black humor, acquired taste), SBP: Sweet Bean Paste (translated and international books), SF: Soul Food (spirituality, theology, books for your soul), SN: Super Nutrition (lots of information, yet tasty as fresh blueberries), and T: Tapas (small bites including short stories, novellas, essays, and poetry). The letters BC denote books for book clubs. Asterisks (*) depict the most outstanding titles in each designation. The plus sign (+) is for books I recommend. The number sign (#) is for books with reviews on my blog. All books listed were published in 2023 unless noted otherwise.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">General Fiction and Poetry</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Allende, Isabel, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Wind Knows My Name </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">moves between decades beginning in 1938 Austria when five-year-old Samuel is sent to England to escape the Nazis. It follows him to California and his life with his colorful wife and then as a widow living with a San Salvadoran caregiver during the pandemic. It blends the story of Anita, a seven-year-old San Salvadoran refugee awaiting an asylum hearing in Arizona, with the tale of the social worker and a lawyer trying to help the girl and find her mother. It’s short on character development and long on melodrama. I hoped for more. CC/PP</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Andrews, Mary Kay, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bright Lights, Big Christmas </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the quintessential holiday romance readers have come to expect from Andrews. Every November Murphy Tolliver and his dad head to the same NYC corner to sell their homegrown Fraser firs at prices they’d never get in North Carolina. This year Murphy’s dad has been hospitalized and his ex-wife, Murphy’s mom, is nursing him, so neither can make the trip. Younger sister Kerry, whose recent job loss leaves her with the time if not the inclination to help, reluctantly fills in driving “Spammy,” the 1963 Shasta trailer, to the city and staying to sell trees. Everyone knows Murphy and the entire neighborhood welcomes Kerry, especially young Austin and his newly divorced dad Patrick. When graphic artist Kerry and Austin befriend a hermit-like old man and begin writing a story together, love blooms. The Hallmark Channel in a novel. D</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Brooks, Geraldine, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Horse </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is set primarily in the 1800s South as a young, enslaved Jarrett, a fabulous character, trains Lexington, the greatest horse of the century, and in 2019 when Jess and Theo study a painting featuring the horse. Theo, a black man reared in Australia and Britain, educated at Yale, and getting his Ph.D. at Georgetown, knows art and is wary of American prejudice. Jess, a white woman/osteologist at the Smithsonian, knows animal structure but little about human interaction and she fears insulting Theo. The language is gorgeous, the theme of race is well explored and the writing is almost perfect with sentences like: “She loved the term “articulate” because it was so apt: a really good mount allowed a species to tell its own story, to say what it was like when it breathed and ran, dived or soared.” I found the ending rushed and felt Theo was owed a more nuanced treatment. The racing scenes are magnificent. G/GPR/PP/SN, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Brooks-Dalton, Lily, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Light Pirate </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">portrays the dying state of Florida in the future as frequent hurricanes and rising water levels threaten. As the latest hurricane approaches, Kirby’s boys disappear. While he searches for them, his wife Frida gives birth to baby Wanda alone. The book follows the precocious Wanda through decades of losses that mirror her abandoned town and state. The four parts: power, water, light, and time offer an enlightening, yet bleak, view of climate change and the future while offering exceptional, multi-dimensional characters filled with hope and a touch of magic realism. GPR/SN, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Brown, Donnaldson, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because I Loved You </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a unique saga with wonderful, flawed characters that evokes its East Texas landscape. Caleb and Leni are teens who care more about their horses than people until they find each other. The novel shows how hard it can be for damaged souls to risk loving fully and emphasizes the importance of becoming who you're meant to be. GPR/PP, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Buchanan, Tracey D., </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Toward the Corner of Mercy and Peace </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is set in 1952 Paducah, KY where 52-year-old Minerva Place, a crabby, judgmental church organist and piano teacher, spends much of her time creating stories about the deceased townspeople she visits in a nearby cemetery. Soon, she begins seeing and talking with them and prefers to be left alone with them. Then, a six-year-old boy and his father move into the neighborhood and try to engage her in life. Dry humor enlivens this debut novel. GPR/PP</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Butland, Stephanie, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Found in a Bookshop</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Loveday owns a bookshop in York, England. It’s closed due to Covid and has no revenue. Kelly, a bookseller, fears she’ll lose her job and she and Loveday create a “book pharmacy” after receiving a letter from a customer asking them to send her books. They soon have a lucrative business finding and sometimes delivering books. The book suggestions will keep the most avid reader busy and the lives of those requesting books are fascinating. Romance and betrayal offer interest, but the books are the stars. It’s a stand-alone sequel. D/SBP/SF, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Butland, Stephanie, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lost for Words Bookshop </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shares Loveday’s time working with Archie in his York, England bookstore and the backstory she hides of her life after her father’s death, her mother’s incarceration, and her time in foster care. She loves the store, books, and her new boyfriend. It’s a charmer filled with books, kindness, and the trauma of abuse. GPR/SBP (2017)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Colgan, Jenny, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Bookshop on the Shore, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zoe wants to escape London with her nonverbal four-year-old son Hari so she takes a job as an au pair in a castle in the Scottish Highlands and a second post working at a bookshop. Hari loves it, but the kids she’s watching have been kicked out of school and it’s all such a challenge. Nina, the bookseller, helps her adjust and the bookstore itself is pure delight. It’s part of a series but stands alone well. D/SBP</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2019)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Colgan, Jenny, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is pure delight with enough humor and realistic dialogue to make it feel honest despite the fairy tale setting and depiction of over-the-top wealth. Polly, a baker, is everyone’s lifeline on their tiny Cornwall island. She and her calm and steady American boyfriend Huckle live happily in an inconvenient lighthouse. When her pregnant best friend, who’s married to ultra-wealthy Reuben, shares a secret, the burden of it causes friction. This works as a stand-alone despite being the third in a series. A caring Christmas treat. D/SBP (2017)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Colgan, Jenny, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">500 Miles from You </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">begins as Lissa, a nurse, visits patients in a deprived London neighborhood and witnesses a hit and run: the seemingly deliberate killing of a teen she knows. She experiences PTSD so her supervisor asks her to swap jobs with a nurse in an isolated town in the Scottish Highlands for three months thinking the quiet will be healing. Cormac, the nurse/paramedic she switches with, isn’t keen on the bustle of London but is ready for a change. The two email daily to report on patients and soon forge a connection. I wanted an additional 100 pages so their meeting could have had the depth and impact found in the rest of the book. I don’t cry often, but the hit and run and aftermath were so well written, that they captured me. A lovely escape enriched by its sensitive handling of depression and organ transplants. D/GPR/SBP/SF (2020)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Colgan, Jenny . . . </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The School by the Sea </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">novels </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">were just what I needed when I contracted a mild case of Covid. With few symptoms other than being tired, I wanted entertainment as I quarantined and these boarding school tales delivered. They form one book with each an installment of one school term. The addition of poetry taught by Maggie, the main character, elevates them above simple rom-coms. They were first published under a pseudonym and reissued. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> +Colgan, Jenny, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Welcome to the School by the Sea: Book 1</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maggie, a new teacher, Simone, an overweight scholarship girl, and the other faculty and pupils at the school and the adjacent boys school in Cornwall make for a light, humorous, romantic tale. D (2008, reissue 2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> +Colgan, Jenny, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rules at the School by the Sea: Book 2, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maggie and her hometown fiancé Stan are planning their wedding and she’s trying to forget David, the teacher at the nearby boy’s school on whom she’s had a crush. Problems with her students and the Head Teacher’s secret add intrigue. Using Maya Angelou’s poem</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “Phenomenal Woman” </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is brilliant. “I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.” D (2009, reissue 2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> +Colgan, Jenny, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lessons at the School by the Sea: Book 3, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maggie broke off her engagement with Stan and David has been fired from his job after a misjudgment in pursuing Maggie. Maggie’s employment is dependent on her not contacting David who’s teaching in another school. D (2009, reissue 2023)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Conklin, Tara, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Community Board, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After 29-year-old Darcy’s husband leaves her for his skydiving instructor, her boss grants her a leave of absence to heal so she heads to her small-town, childhood home. Meanwhile, her parents have gone to Arizona, so Darcy relies on their canned goods supply to hide from life until a series of small jobs forces her to meet people and the online community board engages her gift of repartee. This quirky, zany, comic novel is a treat that differs from her previous, more serious books but still has heft. D/S </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Day, Jamie, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Block Party </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a light, clever, somewhat suspense-filled drama packed with family secrets. Alex, one of the block Moms, drinks too much and her husband and daughter know it. All the characters have secrets and some seek revenge. It’s plot-driven and has little character development. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Doerr, Anthony, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cloud Cuckoo Land, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shortlisted for the National Book Award, is a multi-layered story about how a book, storytelling, libraries, and hope help adolescents comprehend the world and how their resilience is a force for good. Following the last copy of an ancient book from 15th century Constantinople through Italy, present-day Idaho, and a spaceship in the future, the book relays Aethon’s desire to become a bird and fly to paradise. It’s also the tale of Omeir and his oxen forced into invading Constantinople, of Anna, a girl in the besieged city, of Konstance, a girl alone in the future, and of the wonder that is Zeno, an octogenarian working with Idaho children to adapt Aethon’s story into a play. It’s primarily about courage, imagination, and storytelling. This book requires the reader's attention and rewards it with an almost magical understanding of love and courage. Most of my book club members were glad they read it, with a few not finishing it. Read it. G/PP (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Diaz, Hernan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trust </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">envisions the life of one of America’s wealthiest financiers during the 1920s and beyond. The first section: a novel called “</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bonds” </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">depicts financier Benjamin Rask as an impenetrable egoist. Part Two shows the life of Andrew Bevel, on whom the novel </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bonds </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was based, told in his own words with notes to clarify and provide more data. Part Three is told by a young woman hired to take Bevel’s dictation and amplify his thoughts.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Part Four is brief and magnificent with a twist I won’t reveal. It shared the 2023 Pulitzer Prize with </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Demon Copperhead</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I found it fascinating and the premise was ingenious. I recommend it for its craft and the brilliant depiction of misogyny. It’s reminiscent of Edith Wharton. G/PP, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Erlick, Nikki, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Measure, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One morning, every adult on earth receives an indestructible wooden box inscribed “The measure of your life lies within.” Each box contains a string indicating the amount of time the recipient has left to live. Almost immediately, the world changes, with short stringers experiencing discrimination and eight main characters each taking a different approach to the strings they’ve been dealt. The unique premise forms a parable filled with love and grieving that offers hope and insight. This should be discussed in all book clubs. So much to ponder. It was a Read with Jenna pick. GPR/S/SF, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Fuentes, Javier, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Countries of Origin </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a page-turner that explores the fear of falling in love, being gay, and not knowing where you belong because of immigration laws and class divides. Demetrio, who came to the U.S. as a child, is a fine pastry chef who returns to the country he never knew because he fears deportation. He meets Jacobo, a wealthy Spaniard, on the flight and their attraction leads to difficulties. “Up until now, I had considered myself to have two countries of origin, and the notion that I could always establish myself in my other homeland had reinforced the belief that I was inhabiting the space voluntarily. That was no longer the case.” CC/GPR/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Garvin, Eileen, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Music of Bees, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alice lives alone on land that was home to her family's apple orchard. She works for the county and expects a promotion, but when it doesn’t come, she quits her job to concentrate on raising bees and fighting a conglomerate moving to the area with chemicals that will kill her bees and destroy her community. After she almost runs over Jake, a teen in a wheelchair, on a deserted road, she takes him home and observing his father’s cruelty, offers the boy a temporary place to live in her home. He has an affinity for the bees and wants to work with them, but she needs someone able to do more than his disability allows. When 24-year-old Harry, recently out of prison, arrives, his skills complement Jake’s so he moves into the barn and the unique trio supports each other. The debut celebrates familial love, healing, and growth. It cleverly teaches the reader about beekeeping and bees while exploring the theme of community in hives and life. GPR/SN, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Gayle, Mike, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Museum of Ordinary People</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a feel-good dessert of a novel. Jess is overwhelmed with grief after her Trinidadian mother’s death. After cleaning out her home, Jess has kept a few things and given others to charity shops. Jess shares a small apartment with her white boyfriend Guy, a minimalist, and there isn't room for her beloved set of encyclopedias, but no charity shops will take them. Jess’s friend learns of the Museum of Ordinary People, a warehouse that takes such items and everything changes. D/SBP</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*George, Jessica, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maame</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a clever, kind, and caring debut that explores responsible Maddie’s life living with and minding her father with advanced Parkinson’s while her mother stays primarily in Ghana and her brother never comes around. At work, Maddie does everything yet gets no respect and then unfairly loses her job. Being the only Black person in most work situations and trying to ignore countless micro-aggressions add to her stress. Just as Maddie gets a new job, tragedy strikes. The pressure of being a “good” daughter, the discomfort of not fitting into her two cultures, and the need to figure out who she is makes Maddie a phenomenal character. Couldn’t put it down. It was a Read with Jenna pick. GPR/SBP, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Gray, Anissa, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Life and Other Love Songs </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">explores a family dealing with the effects of trauma. On his 37th birthday, while his wife Deborah and daughter Trinity were planning a surprise party for him, Ozro waved goodbye to his brother Tommy after their lunch, walked toward his office, and disappeared. The novel shows Ozro and Deborah falling in love in 1962 in Detroit and their seemingly happy life in the suburbs with their daughter. Deborah spent years searching for clues to the disappearance. Ozro, Tommy, and their mother had escaped racial prejudice and a father who treated them badly when they migrated north, but this reader wonders if Ozro truly escaped. It’s a thoughtful rendering of the difficulties of living with buried trauma. GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Harding, Paul, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This Other Eden, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pulitzer Prize winner Harding’s novel is inspired by one of the first integrated places in the Northeast, an island off the Maine coast. The writing is luminous and lyrical, reading like a prose poem. In 1911, a Governor’s Council preaching eugenics examined and decided to remove the families who had been on the island since 1792. The mesmerizing, mixed Penobscot, African, and Irish characters, especially fair-skinned Ethan, a self-taught artist, are glorious. The descriptions of his art are phenomenal and the way the book makes the reader ponder race and power make it perfect for discussion. When Ethan first encountered ice, I felt like I saw it for the first time. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year, and it illuminates important issues. Finalist for the National Book Award and Booker Prize. G/PP/SN, BC </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Heller, Peter, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Last Ranger, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ren Hopper, in his thirties, is a competent, cerebral Yellowstone Park ranger. He became a ranger after his wife died and he needed nature, specifically fishing, to help with his grief. His love of fishing comes from his estranged, alcoholic mother, leaving him ambivalent about life. Ren isn’t equivocal about the stupidity of Yellowstone’s visitors though he feels his ilk will be the last to care enough about saving bears, bison, wolves, and nature. When he rescues his best friend Hilly after she’s been left to die in a wolf trap, he’s sure he knows who trapped and left her and tries to stop him before Hilly or others die. Gorgeous, poetic prose and sentences that beg to be read aloud make this character-driven novel unique. G/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Henry, Emily, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Happy Place </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a light romance about close friends who gather every year in a Maine beach cottage. This year is different because the cottage is being sold and Win and Harriet have broken up but haven’t told anyone so they’re pretending they’re still together. The novel shows why we need to be honest about what we need for ourselves instead of for others while it celebrates friendship. It’s sexy and fun but not as rich as her previous novels. D</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Hilderbrand, Elin, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Five Star Weekend, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if you want a decent, page-turner, beach read with a happily-ever-after ending, this is it. Five friends gather at the Nantucket beach home of newly widowed, lifestyle blogger Hollis, and talk turns to secrets, sex, and past resentments while forgiveness looms on the horizon. D</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hoover, Colleen, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It Starts with Us</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the stand-alone sequel to</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It Ends with Us, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a fast-paced romance packed with unremarkable sex scenes. It wisely explores domestic violence and the idea that even after making a careful decision to leave an abuser, the connection of a shared child complicates matters. It’s predictable, but Hoover’s fans will still love it. I didn’t. CC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Jackson, Jenny, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pineapple Street</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a sharp, well-played comedy of manners with a subtle nod to finding meaning beyond one’s privileges. The Stockton family has quiet wealth. Tennis-playing, tablescape-making matriarch Tilda’s father and brother were New York Governors and her husband Chip also comes from generational wealth. They’ve just moved into a smaller home in Brooklyn Heights allowing son Cord and his outsider, middle-class wife Sasha to move into, but not to alter their family home. Darley, the elder daughter, married to a brilliant, successful son of Korean immigrants, quit her finance job to rear her young children and signed off on her inheritance rather than ask her husband to sign a prenup. Much younger daughter Georgiana works for a nonprofit but spends most of her time playing tennis or partying until she falls in love. The novel skews classism with cleverness and manages to make you care about people you might not normally like. It’s deliciously observant while offering a hilarious escape. It was a GMA pick. GPR/CC/D/S, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.666667px;"><b>+Jiles, Paulette, </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Chenneville, </i>John Chenneville was injured near the end of the Civil War and was hospitalized and unconscious for almost a year. Upon returning to his family land north of St. Louis, he learned that his only sister, her husband, and their baby had been brutally murdered by Albert Dodd, a deputy sheriff, in southern Missouri. In Jiles’ characteristically poetic prose, she illuminates the landscape and makes every inch of the recovering Chenneville come alive. When he sets out for Texas to seek revenge on Dodd, he meets an engaging telegrapher and others wronged by the evil miscreant. The writing and characters are spectacular, but the quick plot resolution at the book’s end left me wanting more. G/PP, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Joyce, Rachel, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maureen </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the third book in the Harold Fry series following the phenomenal </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and the poignant </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Originally titled </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in Britain, this 192-page novel completes the saga with Maureen’s journey to Queenie’s garden. It’s a solid reflection on forgiveness and love that starts slowly and isn’t as satisfying as her earlier novels. GPR/SF </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Kim, Angie, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Happiness Falls </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">begins when 14-year-old Eugene, who is non-verbal due to autism and Angelman Syndrome, returns from a hike without his father Adam, a white, stay-at-home dad who cares for Eugene and studies what makes us happy. He calls it our “Happiness Quotient.” Narrated by Eugene’s sister, 20-year-old Mia, a pessimist, the book begins as a mystery about a missing dad. Mother Hannah is a Korean-born linguist adding to the irony and highlighting that Eugene, the only one who knows what happened, can't communicate. This multi-layered novel will make you ponder race, disability, happiness, and being different. Both a page-turner and a novel that will force you to question why we equate oral fluency with intelligence, why we assume that some people are happy and others aren't, and why happiness is elusive, <i>Happiness Falls </i>is a must-read. It was a GMA pick. GPR/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Knox, Maggie </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(pen name for duo Karma Brown and Marissa Stapely), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Holiday Swap</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a light romantic Christmas tale with twins switching places so Charlie won't lose her L.A. cooking show gig after a concussion leaves her temporarily without a sense of smell. Cass connects with an ER doc and Charlie falls for a small-town firefighter. It's a Hallmark-style escape. D (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Leary, Jan English, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Town and Gown </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a character-driven, propulsive novel that explores the importance of being true to self while also examining the dangers of keeping secrets. It tells of two unique young women growing up in a small college town. One marries young and becomes pregnant. The other leaves suddenly and doesn’t return until her mother is ill. Great characters and a hope-filled ending make this a winner. GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mansell, Jill, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It Started with a Secret </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a predictable, yet enjoyable romp of a rom-com set primarily by the sea in Cornwall. Two friends, Lainey, a straight woman, and Kit, a gay man, lose their jobs and pose as a married couple to get live-in work at a coastal mansion where one of the owners is an elderly, acerbic film star. It’s entertaining, but Lainey is too Mary Poppins “perfect in every way,” and Kit is also one dimensional. The Cornish setting is lovely. CC/D/SBP (2020)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Marra, Anthony, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mercury Pictures Presents, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maria escapes Mussolin’s Italy for California, but her father can't leave having been sentenced to “confino” for his anti-fascist activism. She begins as a typist at Mercury Pictures working with the studio head and soon begins producing. She falls in love with a Chinese-American actor who can't get work because of his ethnicity. The book offers a detailed view of wartime Hollywood and motion pictures. The final chapters brilliantly tie the characters’ lives together and are exceptional. Clever dialogue and humor make misogyny and prejudice come alive. GPR/PP/SN, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*McBride, James, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">traces white Moshe, the owner of a small Jewish theater, and his wife, Chona, the daughter of the town’s deceased rabbi, who runs the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store from the 1920s through 1972 in their mostly Black and Jewish neighborhood. When officials and Klansman Doc Roberts want to put Dodo, a Black orphan who became deaf in the explosion that killed his mother, in an institution for the feeble-minded, Chona hides and protects him. Connections to McBride’s own mother, a Polish, Jewish immigrant whose father was an itinerant rabbi turned store owner, are evident in the empathy, community, humor, and love McBride builds in his characters. It’s a joy-filled ride that explores the era well. GPR/PP, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+McDermott, Alice, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Absolution </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">begins in 1963 Saigon where 23-year-old Patricia, an American whose husband is a lawyer for the Navy, meets Charlene, the ringleader of the wives in Saigon. Charlene gets Patricia, who she calls Tricia, to help her “help” people including visiting lepers and offering to help Tricia adopt a Vietnamese baby after a miscarriage. Told by Patricia and Charlene’s daughter Rainey in a series of letters years later, the story benefits from the separation from the events. McDermott writes gorgeous sentences and illuminates the period. GPR/PP, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Miller, Nathaniel Ian, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Sven leaves Stockholm in 1916 to work in the mines in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago, he begins keeping notes about life. After losing an eye and becoming disfigured in an avalanche, he escapes civilization to a desolate fjord with his faithful dog. Friendships with Finnish trapper Tapio and a well-read Scotsman help him survive and a surprise visitor arrives. This remarkable novel blends dry wit with lush, yet concise depictions of the harsh landscape and the belief that we all need someone to love. I adore every character in this wonder of a tale and my book club loved them too. G/GPR/PP/SN, BC (2021) </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Millet, Lydia, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dinosaurs, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gil has more money than he’ll ever need, so after his longtime girlfriend leaves him, he abandons New York for Phoenix. He walks the entire way learning about the land and himself. His new neighbors live in a glass house offering him uninterrupted access to their daily lives. He becomes close to them and their son, Tom, who’s being bullied at school. Gil astutely observes the nature around him and is alarmed when he finds abandoned bird corpses shot by an anonymous hunter. His continued friendship with his New York mates and his new friends offers a meditation on caring for ourselves, others, and our world. This kind, luminous novel celebrates connection and love. G/GPR, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Mozina, Andy, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tandem, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the opening pages of this satirical look at ethics and redemption, Mike Kovacs, a recently divorced professor, kills two bicyclists while driving drunk, removes pieces of his car near the bike, applies windshield wiper fluid to eliminate paint marks on the bike, and drives off into the night. You want to hate him, but Mozina presents Mike as a complicated human. “Nothing could be done. They were completely and irrevocably dead.” “He dimly grasped that his instinct for self-excuse was limitless.” Mike soon learns that the girl he killed is the daughter of neighbors and is drawn to the mother Claire. “If she were not married and if he had not killed her daughter, yes, he would be perfectly happy to ask her out. But she was married and he had killed her daughter. And yet. . .” Poe meets John Irving. A must for book clubs! S, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Myers, Linda Joy, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Forger of Marseille </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">illustrates the complicity of France in betraying its countrymen and enabling the Nazis to consolidate power. Readers enter the compelling world of a young Jewish artist and her Spanish boyfriend who risk everything to help others escape and prove that each of us has something to offer to combat evil. It traces the arduous journeys many made through the Pyrenees to escape and makes the reader feel the gusting winds, the crevices, the rocky switchbacks, and the slippery stones of the steep trek toward the Spanish border. Myers doesn't simply report history, she brings it to life. GPR/PP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Napolitano, Ann, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello, Beautiful</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a remarkable ode to the power inherent in the belief that everyone deserves love. The novel cleverly references Little Women as four of the main characters are sisters similar to the March siblings. It's a big-hearted family saga that will envelop you completely as you enter Chicago’s Pilsen community and become a part of the Padavano family. Select this for your book club as these characters will remain with you and you’ll want to talk about them with friends. It was an Oprah selection. GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Novey, Idra, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take What You Need</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> explores the power of art to make life whole and to capture the world collapsing around us. Jean was Leah’s stepmother, but they hadn’t seen each other in years. Jean still lives in their dying Allegheny hometown where she creates “manglements,” unique scrap metal sculptures. Leah moved to Peru and now lives in Queens with her Latino husband and son. When Jean dies, Leah inherits the manglements and reluctantly revisits her past and encounters a man she’s long feared. Novey expertly blends the rise of Trump with the dying town and our misguided attempts to help others. A brilliant examination of longing, grief, and art. G, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Oakley, Colleen, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a page-turner of a romp that will make you laugh and then pause as you consider the beauty of finding someone who sees you for who you truly are. After 84-year-old Louise broke her hip, her family hired 21-year-old Tanner to live with her and drive her to her appointments. Tanner is bereft after an injury resulted in the loss of her scholarship and her hopes for a pro soccer career. When these acerbic women run away together, Louise’s past presents problems. CC/D, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Offill, Jenny, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Weather </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">focuses attention on Lizzie, a college librarian, who seems to be all things to those within her realm. She counsels her mother, tries to keep her brother safe and sober, and answers emails for a podcast about climate change and weather, yet just dropping her son off at school overwhelms her. Lizzie’s marriage feels tenuous yet kind and her climate fears feel related to those about her marriage. The taut sentences, wit, and piercing paragraphs create a powerful novel by one of our best authors. G/S 2020</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Patchett, Ann, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tom Lake, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">like the play </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our Town </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that frames it, is a tale of people living ordinary lives. Lara, summoned to Michigan to play Emily in summer stock, falls for future movie star Peter Duke. The cast visits production member Joe’s family’s cherry orchard and years later Joe and Lara marry and settle on the farm. After Duke’s untimely death, Lara tells her grown daughters, home for the pandemic summer, the details of that long-ago summer. In the quiet manner only she manages, Patchett makes the quotidian sing. Reread </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our Town </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to appreciate the intricately woven similarities. Try the audio as Meryl Streep reads it perfectly. GPR/R, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Peters, Amanda, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Berry Pickers </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a phenomenal, heartfelt debut that shares the consequences of the 1962 kidnapping of Ruthie, a four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl, from the Maine camp where her family worked as berry pickers. Told over fifty years in chapters narrated by Joe, Ruthie’s troubled older brother who saw her last, and by Norma, a conflicted only child with older white parents who has unexplained dreams, the novel shows the love of Ruthie’s bereft family and the trauma that burying the past and trying to annihilate a culture has on people. Simply outstanding! Even the “villains'' are great characters. Peters listened well to her father’s tales of the berry fields. GPR/PP, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Picoult, Jodi and Jennifer Finney Boylan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mad Honey </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a novel featuring fast pacing and Picoult’s usual strong message about a hot issue. She and Boylan don’t disappoint as Picoult narrates in the voice of Olivia who escaped an abusive husband to establish a good life with her son in a small New Hampshire town. Boylan captures Lily, a high school senior, who’s recently moved to town with her mother to get a new start. Olivia’s son Asher falls in love with Lily and after her death, he’s accused of killing her. The trial is compelling and the reveal of the hot issue is clever. The lack of character development makes the conclusion less than satisfying and their introduction of beekeeping feels forced. Good for older teens. CC, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Rash, Ron, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Caretaker</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sings with lush language, a plot that won’t let you go, and Rash’s incredible characters including evil ones that he’s phenomenal at illuminating. Despite his parents’ threat to disinherit him, Jacob marries Naomi, a teen Jacob’s parents disdain. Naomi later becomes pregnant and Jacob gets his draft notice and is sent to Korea to serve in that long-ago war. He asks his best friend Blackburn, a polio survivor, to watch out for Naomi and the baby when it arrives. What happens next is something only Rash could write. It’s a page-turner, but the language and characters beg you to slow down. Phenomenal! G/GPR/GS/PP, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Rooney, Kathleen, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From Dust to Stardust </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is based on the life of silent movie star Colleen Moore who’s most famous for the magnificent fairy castle she created and donated to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. Fourteen-year-old Eileen and her grandmother head to Hollywood where in 1916 Eileen becomes Doreen O’Dare and stars in several movies. She tells her life story in 1968 at the museum as they record her relating how she collected the items and built the castle while remembering her life. This tale of resilience, misogyny, and hard work will appeal to movie aficionados and all Chicagoans. GPR/PP/SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Schine, Cathleen, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Künstlers in Paradise </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a spectacular novel that combines historical fiction, a modern family saga, and the witty repartee between a 93-year-old grandmother and her 20-something grandson. Beginning in 1939 Vienna, when Mamie is 11 and her family escapes the Nazis to live in California, the book shows the importance of sharing stories. In 2020, when Mamie and her grandson Julian quarantine due to Covid, the book explores the similarities of exile in a new country with exile from normal life. Great language, wisdom, characters, and joy make this a winner. D/GPR/PP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Shapiro, Dani, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Signal Fires, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s 1985 and 15-year-old Theo Wilf is driving because his older sister Sarah has been drinking. They crash in front of their home and Misty, their passenger, dies. Sarah claims that she was the driver and no one checks her for alcohol. Their father, a doctor, runs out and tries to save Misty. An omniscient narrator takes the reader ahead in time as the secrets of that day affect the family. Later, on New Year’s Eve before 2000, Dr. Wilf again leaves his house to deliver and save the life of the premature baby being born to new neighbors across the street. He later forms a relationship with the child, named Waldo, who shows the doctor an app that charts constellations and forms a significant part of Waldo’s life. The app shows the interconnectedness of the sky as it details “stars, signal fires in the dark.” Outstanding character development, the interconnectedness theme, and Shapiro’s incredible word pictures lead to a beautiful climax. G, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Shipman, Viola, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Famous in a Small Town</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a frothy summer romantic comedy of a novel set in a fictional town based on Good Hart, Michigan where I live in summer and fall. There are enough similarities for it to charm locals and visitors. None of the characters are based on real people, and many places have been moved or invented to fit the storyline. I enjoyed it for the setting despite the numerous typos and the absence of copy editing. If you’re looking for a feel-good summer novel with a predictable ending, this is it. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Stradel, J. Ryan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> captures the north woods of Minnesota and the omnipresent food, cocktails, and relish trays found in old-time supper clubs. The novel mimics those supper clubs with familiar characters, caring families, and concerns over young adults leaving for the big cities. Mariel loves the restaurant that her mother disdained. Her grandmother leaves it to her which causes stress with her mother. This book is pure Midwestern comfort food. GPR </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Stringfellow, Tara, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Memphis </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">follows three generations of Memphis women over seventy years. Beginning in 1995 when Miriam leaves her abusive husband to take her daughters to stay with her Aunt August and her worrisome son Derek in their family home where the Black community offers support. This debut makes you question why Miriam would take her girls near Derek after what he’d done, but the focus on resilience and forgiveness makes it plausible. I loved thinking about the family having prints by contemporary Black artists Romare Bearden and Allen Stringfellow that showed ordinary Blacks in everyday life so exuberantly. They mirrored the plot well. It was a Read with Jenna pick. GPR/SN, BC (2023)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Thai, Thao, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Banyan Moon </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">follows three generations of women beginning with Minh who left Vietnam with her children in 1973. She’s lived in a deteriorating Gothic house in the Florida swamps for decades. When her granddaughter Ann, newly pregnant and living with her professor boyfriend in Michigan, learns of Minh’s death, she heads south to her estranged mother Hu’o’ng. Told in three viewpoints between present-day Florida and 1960s Vietnam, the novel explores the power of secrets, inherited trauma, love, and the things we carry. Minh’s descriptions of Vietnam during the war and after the “white allies left,” sing with authenticity. Thai cleverly reveals secrets at just the right time. It was a Read with Jenna pick. GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Urrea, Luis Alberto, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good Night, Irene </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">introduces the little-known World War II Red Cross Clubmobile corps and the volunteer “Donut Dollies,” women who made and served coffee and donuts to GIs in England and Europe. While working to bolster morale among the troops, these women served alongside the soldiers under the most difficult and harrowing circumstances. Focusing primarily on two volunteers: Irene, a privileged but unhappy New Yorker, and Dorothy, an Indiana farm girl who's lost both the farm and her family, the novel reveals the truth about World War II in Europe and depicts it more vividly than nonfiction ever could. GPR/PP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Verghese, Abraham, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Covenant of Water, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the acclaimed author of </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cutting for Stone </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">has given the world a new epic, this one set in the Kerala region of India in an area filled with devout St. Thomas Christians. In 773 pages, from 1900 to 1977, it traces one family living with an unexplained “Condition” in which a child drowns in every generation. Verghese’s medical knowledge makes the chapters set in a home for people with leprosy and in medical schools both realistic and compelling. In essence, though, this is a novel about love, forgiveness, and sacrifice. The last chapters are particularly strong and beautiful. Verghese builds great multi-faceted characters, especially matriarch Big Ammachi. This fine fable was an Oprah pick. G/PP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Ward, Jesmyn, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let Us Descend</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a searing rendering of the horrors of slavery, an image of the inferno Dante envisioned. In Ward’s singular lyrical, poetic words, she relentlessly submits the reader to the monstrosity of slavery as seen through Annis, who was sold south by the white “owner” who “sired” her. As she walks, she enters an imaginary world of spirits who haunt, taunt, and sometimes comfort her. Reading this is bearing witness to the trauma of slavery. It’s unrelenting just as enslavement was which makes it difficult to read emotionally. The ending is magnificent. G/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Warrell, Laura, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">embeds the reader in jazz trumpeter Circus Palmer’s life and that of the complex women surrounding him who tell his story. Circus leaves a woman he loves upon learning that she’s pregnant and thus continues his longtime habit of emotional avoidance. Evading his teenage daughter Koko after her mother abandons her is different, or is it? Koko is a great character who stuck with me long after the book ended. Two sentences show how love can grow. Quoting them would be a spoiler, so to paraphrase: somewhere over time, one becomes someone who has love and another becomes someone in need of it. The novel beautifully reflects the music playing in Circus’s mind and the way love changes us. GPR, BC (2022)</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Zigman, Laura, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Small World </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">envisions the world of newly divorced Joyce who works at home in her Cambridge apartment. She welcomes her sister Lydia into her home when Lydia moves East after her recent divorce. Hoping to forge a new relationship, and re-examine their childhood that dealt with the care of then grief over the death of their disabled sister, the women are uneasy when loud neighbors move in above them and Joyce, in particular, finds herself adrift and annoyed. Dry humor and well-drawn characters make this family saga meaningful and poignant. Just right for book clubs. GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Abbott, Megan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beware the Woman</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jacy and Jed, newlywed and three months pregnant, visit Jed’s retired physician father at his rustic, wooded estate in a remote area of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where Mrs. Brandt, the enigmatic housekeeper, lives in a nearby cabin. When Jacy begins bleeding, no one wants her to leave. Shades of <i>Rebecca </i>color this gothic noir with additional touches of horror from a prowling mountain lion. Is anyone telling the truth? The writing is captivating, but the big twist and some characters’ actions felt slightly forced. The introduction of the issue of a woman’s control over her body was well done. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Allen, Samantha Jayne, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hard Rain </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a stand-alone mystery, the second in the Annie McIntyre series focusing on Annie’s new career as a private investigator. A horrific flood destroyed several homes where low-income families lived. Annie’s high school classmate Bethany survived the flood after a man in a nearby tree pulled her to safety. She fears he may have died and wants to find him so she hires Annie. Annie’s search leads her to discover a body in a car in the river which leads to a connection to Bethany’s church. Allen captures rural Texas and is a master of propulsive action. Reading </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pay Dirt</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, shortlisted for the Hammett Prize, offers insight into Annie, but this sharp, twisty, suspense thriller stands on its own. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Barton, Fiona, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Local Gone Missing </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a character-driven mystery set in a seaside English town. Detective Inspector Elise King is on medical leave after breast cancer surgery so she begins looking for clues to the disappearance of a local man everyone seems to love. The entire town seems to have secrets and Dee, the house cleaner, who cleans for Elise and the man who disappeared along with other not-so-stellar residents; knows what many are hiding. While filled with clever twists, it isn't quite as good as her </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Widow </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">series. CC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Box, C.J., </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shadows Reel: A Joe Pickett Novel #22, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joe finds a local fishing guide brutally burned and murdered while Joe’s wife Marybeth opens a package hand-delivered to the library that contains a photo album connected to a notorious Nazi. Marybeth’s research shows that Wyoming soldiers served in the area in the photos. Was the guide killed to retrieve the album? It’s a clever mystery with great twists, but the secondary story of Joe’s friend hunting for the man who stole his falcons and attacked his wife seems superfluous. CC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Coban, Harlan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Boy from the Woods </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a propulsive thriller that won't let you put it down. Thirty years ago, Wilde was a young child found living alone in the woods. When a teenage girl goes missing and Wilde’s godson asks him to help find her, he uses his unique skills which leads to an unexpected connection to the wealthy and the powerful. The twists and characters pull you in. CC (2020)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Cosby, S.A., </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All the Sinners Bleed, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Titus Crown, former FBI Agent, is the first Black Sheriff in his small Virginia town when a former student walks into the local high school and shoots a beloved white teacher whose phone later shows horrific photos and videos leading to a field filled with bodies of murdered Black children with religious messages carved into their bodies. The victim, his murderer, and a third masked man are shown in the images and Titus must fight a church and racial animosity to determine whodunnit. This Southern Gothic thriller illuminates Virginia’s racial history and the epilogue is incredible. GPR/GS, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Cosby, S.A., </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My Darkest Prayer, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nate works at his cousin’s funeral home having quit his job in the Sheriff’s office after they didn't arrest anyone in the drunk driving accident that killed Nate’s parents. When a local pastor dies and the authorities deem it suicide, parishioners ask Nate to investigate. Being the son of a white, non-violent father he respected and a Black mother who saw things realistically, Nate emerges as a conflicted hero in Cosby’s debut offering a preview of the fine author to come. GPR/CC/GS (2019, reissue 2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Cranor, Eli, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t Know Tough </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Friday Night Lights </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">meets Ron Rash in a rural Arkansas suspense thriller portraying high school football star Billy Lowe, an angry kid who’s constantly terrorized by his Mom’s boyfriend. When he snaps on the field, his new, born-again Christian, fresh from California, coach thinks he can save Billy. When the abuser/boyfriend is found murdered in the Lowe’s trailer, Billy is the prime suspect and the town’s playoff hopes may end. This stellar Edgar Award debut is tough and tender. G/GPR/GS, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Cranor, Eli, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ozark Dogs </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a great Southern noir page-turner. Bronze Star recipient Jeremiah raised his granddaughter Joanna in his Arkansas junkyard after his son went to prison for life. The Ledford family, white supremacist meth dealers, could be after Joanna so when she disappears, Jeremiah plans to use his Viet Nam-learned sniper skills. His vivid memories make this a terrifying yet gripping tale. “The girl with the broken-heart birthmark lay curled on her side under the open-air window where she'd looked through the scope at Jeremiah and smiled. His training told him he had to check her pulse and confirm his kill–there was a Bronze Star waiting for him.” G/GPR/GS, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Harper, Jordan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everybody Knows </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is as noir as it gets. Following a series of bombings in homeless encampments around LA, Mae watches as her boss is killed outside the Beverly Hills Hotel. She’s good at her job covering up the misdeeds of the wealthy and famous, but she’s scared she could be a target. Her ex-boyfriend Chris, a former cop working private security, investigates and things get sticky. Mae and Chris uncover Hollywood sex crimes involving children and untouchable perpetrators. When they find a pregnant teen who could blow the cover off, the depravity increases. The beginning wanders, but the last half is brilliant and ties everything together. I adored his </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She Rides Shotgun </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and this is as well-written, but the graphic details are tough to read. G</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Hawkins, Rachel, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Heiress </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a Southern Gothic noir tale that begins with Ruby, North Carolina’s wealthiest woman, who was kidnapped as a child and suspiciously widowed four times all while living in a massive family estate in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her son Cam and his wife Jules live a normal life in Colorado where he rejects his inheritance after his mother’s death, but when his uncle dies, he and Jules return to Ashley House. Why did Ruby adopt Cam? Filled with unreliable narrators, this is a clever mystery with several twists. It comes out on January 9, 2024. CC/GS (2024)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Jackson, Joshlyn, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With My Little Eye </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the suspense-filled tale of Meribel Mills, a former sitcom celebrity being stalked by “Marker Man” who sends her threatening notes using scented markers. She and Honor, her 12-year-old neurodivergent daughter, escape LA for Atlanta. Could the stalker be her ex-husband, her new boyfriend, or their helpful neighbor? Jackson’s first thriller produces exciting, anxiety-inducing moments and sweet characters. CC/GS</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Jónasson, Ragnar and Jakobsdóttir, Katrin, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reykjavík: A Crime Story, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Acclaimed mystery writer and Agatha Christie translator Jónasson joins with debut author and Iceland’s Prime Minister Jakobsdóttir, who wrote her master's thesis on Icelandic author Arnaldur Indradason, in this homage to Agatha Christie that begins in 1956 when 14-year-old Lara works for a couple on an island off Reykjavik’s coast and soon disappears leaving no trace. Thirty years later, Valur, a journalist, investigates the disappearance and finds out too late that Iceland’s most powerful people don’t want him to succeed. Jakobsdóttir’s insider political knowledge makes the powerful characters feel real. CC/SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Johnston, Tim, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Distant Sons</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">begins when Sean’s truck breaks down in a small Wisconsin town and he ends up in a bar fight defending a waitress’s honor. Dan drifts into town and works with Sean on a project at an elderly hermit’s home and they realize that the town is still trying to figure out the disappearance of three young boys forty years previously. Great characters make this more about friendship and life than figuring out whodunnit. GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Krueger, William Kent, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The River We Remember </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is set in a small Minnesota town in 1958 where the wealthiest man in the county has been found dead in a river bend. Almost all who knew him had reason to dislike him. Focusing on several characters, all of whom have traumatic life experiences, makes the actual mystery of who might have murdered the man take a backseat. Some characters, like the endearing teen Scott who was born with heart issues, don't serve the narrative focus and force a predictable ending. When Noah Bluestone, a Dakota Sioux, is arrested for the crime, the prejudices of many residents reveal themselves. Unlike Krueger’s previous stand-alone books, this one feels forced in pushing issues over plot. The novel’s heavy-handed treatment of several topics including PTSD, alcoholism, misogyny, and sexual assault makes the story feel almost incidental. PP </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Kukafka, Danya, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes on an Execution, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the 2023 Edgar Award winner for best mystery, is a psychological suspense novel about Ansel Packer, a serial killer, and his victims and others impacted by his actions. As Ansel sits on death row counting down the twelve hours until his execution, he tells his story in the second person, beginning with “You are a fingerprint.” This works to hold us at a distance from Ansel and allows us to concentrate on the third-person stories of a detective who'd been in foster care with Ansel, of Ansel’s mother, of Ansel’s wife’s twin sister, and of his other victims. The novel is a brilliant, sad, chilling portrait showing how damaged people damage themselves and others. In it, we see our own voyeurism in the way we look at victims and killers. G, BC (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Landay, William, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All That Is Mine, I Carry with Me, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Landay’s </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Defending Jacob</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is one of the best courtroom dramas I've read so I had high hopes. In 1975, young Miranda came home from school to an empty house. Her mother was still missing when her older brothers got home. Time passed and everyone including the detective assigned to the case thought their father, an egotistical defense attorney, had killed her. Their mother’s body was found in 1993. Alex, the older brother thought their father innocent and the younger siblings and their aunt were certain their father had killed their mother. Different characters, including their mother, narrate the book in sections set at separate times. The concept is intriguing, but I didn't find the book cohesive or compelling. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Lapena, Shari, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone Here Is Lying</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Dr. Wooler was having an affair and lying to hide it. His 9-year-old daughter Avery, who frequently misbehaved, came home alone after being kicked out of choir practice. The doctor lost his temper when he found Avery at home then she disappeared.. Witnesses offered conflicting evidence. Unreliable narrators abound in this tight thriller you’ll want to devour in one sitting. Evil and self-preservation take center stage. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Makkai, Rebecca, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I Have Some Questions for You</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> takes Podcaster Bodie Kane back to the 1990s murder of Thalia, her boarding school roommate. Bodie returns to campus to teach students how to create a podcast and one pupil finds information that could free the man convicted of the crime. Makkai’s brilliant use of lists to highlight the seemingly endless sexual assaults of young girls is reminiscent of Julie Otsuka’s writing. I couldn't stop thinking about Brett Kavanaugh and others as I read. Perfect for book clubs. GPR/CC/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+May, Peter, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Winter Grave </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a stand-alone mystery from the award-winning author of my beloved Lewis trilogy. It’s 2051 and much of the earth is too hot to inhabit while the melting Gulf Stream has hit Scotland with rare snow and ice storms. In the northern Highlands, Addie, a meteorologist, discovers the body of a missing investigative reporter encased in ice at a weather station Addie’s monitoring. Cameron Brodie, a Glasgow detective just diagnosed with a terminal disease, volunteers to investigate hoping to reunite with his estranged daughter who lives in the village. He and a pathologist encounter evidence of murder as a storm cuts them off and they can’t trust anyone. CC/GPR/SBP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Miranda, Megan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Only Survivors, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The nine survivors of a deadly crash ten years ago that killed several of their high school classmates and two teachers gather every year on the anniversary in a cottage on the Outer Banks. One of them died by suicide on an anniversary and Cassidy has cut herself off from them until she receives a text with the obituary of another survivor so she joins the rest. They’re down to seven when another disappears. With flashbacks to the aftermath of the wreck and multiple twists and turns, this builds to a strong climax. Miranda never disappoints. CC/G</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Mizushima, Margaret, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Standing Dead: A Timber Creek Canine Mystery, #8, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">K-9 officer Mattie Cobb and her German Shepherd partner Robo find the body of her mother’s husband near a campground where a stock tank’s poisoned water has caused illness. A note appears on Mattie’s door that the criminals have Mattie’s mother and are coming for her and her family. The books in this series offer insight into search and rescue dogs. CC/SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Osman, Richard, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Last Devil to Die: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery #4, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">begins with the murder of Stephen’s old friend Kuldesh, an antique dealer, whose death seems connected to a missing heroin delivery. The Coopers Chase crew and their police friends identify several suspects who soon get murdered. Who will be the last to die? The best and most endearing part of this novel is the sensitive treatment of Stephen’s increasing dementia and his wife Elizabeth’s role as his caretaker plus their friends’ support. GPR/CC, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Parks, Alan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To Die in June: Harry McCoy Thrillers #6 </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was a bit of a disappointment. I still recommend it for those who love this series and want to know how Harry McCoy is faring, but it isn’t as sharp or insightful as his earlier work. It’s 1975 and Harry and Wattie get transferred to Possill Station where Harry is to secretly determine if the detectives are on the take. A church may be involved with a missing child and someone seems to be poisoning older homeless alcoholics which could include Harry’s dad. The bad guys are everywhere and Harry could get caught up in it. CC/PP/SBP</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Royce, Deborah Goodrich, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reef Road</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> showcases Royce’s ability to infuse twists that grab the reader. The plot hinges on the unsolved murder of a 12-year-old girl in 1948, but the action takes place at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 with two unreliable narrators: a wife whose family has disappeared and a writer. The writer befriends the wife and then stalks and spies on her. This tight, haunting thriller is both elegant and creepy. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Slocumb, Brendan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Symphony of Secrets,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Slocumb follows his blockbuster </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Violin Conspiracy </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with a tale weaving classical music, jazz, and prejudice against Black scholars. Frederic Delaney is Bern Hendrick’s favorite composer. Bern has devoted most of his academic career to studying Delaney’s masterpieces. The last of Delaney’s operas has been lost for decades so when the Delaney Foundation, the organization that funded Bern’s schooling, offers him the chance to work on the newly discovered lost opera manuscript, he's ecstatic. He brings in his friend Eboni, a computer analyst who’s worked on other operas, and together they find evidence of a fascinating, neurodivergent Black woman who lived with Delaney who probably wrote his best work. A clever mystery that makes you question assumptions. The audio is brilliantly read. CC/GS/R/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Sutano, Jesse Q., </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a light, cozy mystery featuring Vera, a lonely widow, who finds a dead body in her tea house. Meeting the victim’s family and a few possible suspects enlivens Vera’s existence and her cooking and care connects them all. When Vera tries to solve the mystery, she causes unforeseen difficulties. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Swanson, Peter, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Kind Worth Saving </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">makes the reader wonder who the good guys are. Joan hires former teacher and police officer Henry Kimball to learn if her husband is cheating on her. Henry was Joan’s high school teacher and both were in the classroom when a student shot and killed Joan’s best friend then himself. Flashbacks to Joan and her husband Richard’s encounter as teens on vacation in Maine add an ominous note. The sinister twists in this character-driven mystery keep the reader guessing. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nonfiction</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Bass, Diana Butler, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grateful: the Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">originally published with the subtitle: </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, is a book that changed me and made several tough months in my life better. Learning to be grateful </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all things instead of </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all things has made me more attentive and in the present while feeling grateful for where I am. The book taught me that gratitude isn’t just saying thank you, it’s being in community </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> others and being both beneficiary and benefactor. It’s based in Christianity yet welcoming to nonbelievers and those of other faiths. I led a 9-week study of it at my church and highly recommend it to all groups. The book’s cover is purposefully not “Hallmarkish” to reflect the realism inside. SF/SN, BC (2018)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Bhatt, Vishwesh, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I Am from Here: Stories and Recipes from a Southern Chef</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> wowed me with Bhatt’s tales of food from his childhood in Gujarat, India, and his lush reminiscences with each recipe. The variety of recipes like Chicken Salad with Mango Chutney and Pistachios, All-Weather-Tomato Tart, Sweet Potato and Peanut Salad, Peanut Crusted Fish, Rice Pilaf with Chicken, Raisins, and Cashews, and Vish’s Garam Masala blended India and Oxford, Mississippi where he’s been a restaurateur for many years. SN, 2022</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Chung, Nicole, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Living Remedy</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chung’s parents were out of work with no health insurance when her father became ill and couldn’t get treatment. His death felt like murder, but Chung, the author of the brilliant </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All You Can Ever Know, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and her mother coped. Then her mother was diagnosed with cancer and Covid arrived leaving Chung unable to visit her mother while she was dying. This book is a gift to all who grieve. When Chung and her family got a dog: “She has given our weary, grieving family another place to put our love, a shared focus that isn’t all about what we’ve lost, and I am often reminded that this, too, is part of mourning: trying to find new joy where we can.” Read and discuss this miracle of a book. GPR/SF/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Emmons, Robert, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Little Book of Gratitude </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">offers the ARC model of gratitude: Gratitude </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">amplifies </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">goodness, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rescues </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">us from negative emotions, and </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">connects </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">us to others in meaningful ways. This small book offers quick suggestions to keep you on the path of gratitude. It’s a fine companion after you’ve read Diana Butler Bass’s </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grateful. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SF/SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Finkel, Michael, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime and a Dangerous Obsession </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tells the surprising tale of Stépane Breitwieser who began stealing art from small European museums at age 25. By the time he was caught, he'd stolen more than 209 times, and his collection, which he kept in his attic rooms above his mother’s home was thought to be worth $2 billion. He never planned to sell his treasures; he simply enjoyed looking at them with his girlfriend beside him. Finkel’s research makes the bizarre story compelling. SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Jackson, Regina and Rao, Saira, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, The authors, one Black and one Asian, founded Race2Dinner to facilitate conversations among white women about racism. They saw that many white women in their sessions used niceness and tears to avoid tough questions. This is their “gift” to white women to help them work toward dismantling white supremacy. The book forces the reader to be vulnerable enough to overcome white silence, color blindness, entitlement, microaggressions, and the myth of white saviors. It isn’t an easy book to read if you pay attention and look inward, and you must. SN (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Kimball, Christopher, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Milk Street Cook What You Have: Make a Meal Out of Almost Anything </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is well organized with sections including Not So Basic Beans, Can-Do Tomatoes, Go-To Grains. Good Eggs, Chicken Winners, Sausage Solutions, and Tortilla Twists. Each recipe offers numerous substitution options making them accessible. I loved Chickpea and Garlic Soup with Cumin-Spiced Butter and Egg Salad with Harissa, Olives, and Almonds. Garlicky Peanut Noodles offers a new take on an old favorite. SN (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Land, Stephanie, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The author of the best-selling <i>Maid</i> and the subsequent Netflix series based on that book, describes the endless sacrifices and fears involved in cleaning houses, caring for her young daughter, and going to college to fulfill her dream of becoming a writer. Her fights for child support, food stamps, and subsidized childcare with a system that doesn't believe she deserves to go to school make the reader feel her hunger for food and learning and her wishes for her daughter to have moments of joy. The prejudice shown toward her as not deserving of being in college rings true. Her stories should awaken readers to the realities of poverty. Land is a talented chronicler of hardship and determination. It's magnificent and impossible to put down. GPR/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Murphy, Finn, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rocky Mountain High: A Tale of Boom and Bust in the New Wild West, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When 61-year-old Murphy moves to Colorado, he takes his previous entrepreneurial success and enough capital to enter the booming legal hemp industry. What could go wrong with an enterprise where no one has experience, the land and short season work against raising the product, the market is mercurial at best, and shipping rules make no sense? Everything—and it does! Murphy’s humorous rendition of almost losing it all along with his clever and tender tales of the people he meets, make this a winner. GPR/SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Perelman, Deb, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant & Unfussy New Favorites, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While I don’t adore this as much as I did the original 2112 </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Smitten Kitchen Cookbook,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I found several tasty new recipes including Herb & Garlic Baked Camembert, Pork Tenderloin Agrodolce with Squash Rings, and the gorgeous Leek, Feta, and Greens Spiral Pie using phyllo dough sheets. I’m not baking or making desserts right now, but the sweets looked yummy. SN (2017)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Perelman, Deb, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Smitten Kitchen Keepers: New Classics for Your Forever Files, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a Bon Appétit and Epicurius best cookbook of 2022, offers fresh ideas. My Bodega-Style Egg-and-Cheese makes mornings a snap. Broccoli Rabe with Broken Burrata is pure heaven and Green Angel Hair with Garlic Butter makes an easy yet luscious dinner. Never did I expect to make pickled iceberg lettuce, but it’s yummy in her “Russian” BLT. The Chocolate Olive Oil Spread can easily replace Nutella. I agree with Publishers Weekly’s starred review: “Practical and versatile, this is a boon to home cooks.” SN (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Prince Harry, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Spare</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> captures Prince Harry’s still simmering anger over his mother’s death and his admissions of how he coped with PTSD and his grief in early adulthood. It also clearly explains his father’s neglect and the toll it took on their relationship. Using J.R.Moehringer, the author of the phenomenal </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Tender Bar, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as his ghostwriter was brilliant as he honestly shows Harry’s anger alongside his love for his wife and family in a book that feels authentic while showing the need for Harry to tell his story his way. The prejudice shown toward the young family was perfectly explored. GPR/SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Ruhl, Sarah, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Smile </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shares playwright Ruhl’s story of losing her ability to smile and move much of her face when she contracted Bell’s palsy after giving birth. Her opening sentences make the reader want to learn more: “Ten years ago, my smile walked off my face, and wandered out in the world. This is the story of my asking it to come back. This is a story of how I learned to make my way when my body stopped obeying my heart.” That's all you need to know; read it. It will touch you deeply. GPR/SF/SN (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tandoh, Ruby, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cook As You Are: Recipes for Real Life, Hungry Cooks, and Messy Kitchens, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A cookbook with a recipe beginning on the same page as another one ends is distracting. Stuffed Flatbreads, Three Ways intrigued me, but seeing it on the same page as the variations for Lemony Green Lentil Soup didn’t. Neither did the recipe groupings. The illustrations offered little. Whatever-You’ve-Got-Fried-Rice might make a good meal with ingredients you have on hand but use Christopher Kimball’s </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Milk Street Cook What You Have </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">instead. SN (2022)</span></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peanut Butter and Jelly, books for children</span></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Blackall, Sophie, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I Was a Horse, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by the two-time</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Caldecott Medal winner, is a slice of perfection that rambunctious two-year-olds like my granddaughter will actually sit to explore and hear read to them. Blackall’s illustrations are spectacularly engaging and her brief, humorous text captures even reluctant listeners. “If it was raining, I wouldn’t care. I would roll in the mud and laugh and laugh.” The glittery cover adds to the attraction. PBJ (Ages 2-7)</span></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diet Coke and Gummie Bears, books for teens, and young adults</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Craig, Erin, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">House of Roots and Ruin: Sisters of the Salt #2 </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a stand-alone sequel to the 2019 hit </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">House of Salt and Sorrows. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This gothic thriller fantasy is just what teens want in a big book filled with ghosts, demons, and an imagined world that never interferes with the well-told story. Readers will beg for a third installment. DC (Ages 14-18)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Kimmerer, Robin Wall, adapted by Monique Gray Smith and illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The adult book club at my church read this, loved it, and agreed that it’s a fine introduction to the classic </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Braiding Sweetgrass. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The illustrations, ideas, and exploration of ecology offer stories and examples that show us how to listen to the wisdom of the earth and work to preserve it. DC/SF/SN, BC (Ages 10 and up) (2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Monsef, Kiyash, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once There Was, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">15-year-old Marjan’s veterinarian father was murdered and she was alone and adrift when she was called to heal a mythological creature and learned that she was part of an ancient line able to heal fantastical animals. Tweens and teens will love meeting a griffin, a unicorn, and other beasts, but there’s still a murder to solve. A magic carpet ride for animal lovers. DC (Ages 10 and up.)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Picoult, Jodi and Jennifer Finney Boylan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mad Honey, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">see General Fiction for a novel addressing a hot issue that older teens should find compelling. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Stork, Francisco X., </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I Am Not Alone</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> features 17-year-old Albert, an undocumented house painter from Mexico living with his sister and her baby. Alberto hears voices that scare him while creating fine pottery calms him. He meets Grace, a probable valedictorian living a structured life while confused after her father leaves her mother. When Alberto is mugged and then accused of murder, Grace must decide whether to leave her safe cocoon to help him. The story illuminates early schizophrenia and mental health challenges and focuses on courage and kindness. DC/SN (Ages 13 and up)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Tahir, Sabaa, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All My Rage</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">winner of the 2022 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and the 2023 ALA Printz Award for Young Adult Literature, is a beautiful tale of outcasts. Noor’s uncle wants her to work in his liquor store instead of going to college. Sal is trying to keep his family’s motel afloat while his mother Misbah’s health fails and his alcoholic father doesn’t help. Alternating between their viewpoints and Misbah’s recollections of her arranged early marriage and life in Pakistan, Misbah’s illness brings Sal and Noor together in a poignant look at longing and connection. DC (Ages 14 and up) (2022)</span></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-773728261505409212023-10-24T06:00:00.001-05:002023-10-25T06:12:33.317-05:00Tandem by Andy Mozina<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrB6pqlWuleEflmE4u3PloVzVDA9N4utW4K123PLHocmLaIY28mx3hQCADk_RJ1dR25T6R-WX0RiuuI-lUoRF784NmlIWoGNCodAxQcPItHsHugmTa7S9ECuBCVi__4Ooo8y9JITvhGHQQKSvFDgtcA6ai0LBn3NsZriUU3AESsJPnY7QYngAbttu_fhg/s5073/IMG_1646.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5073" data-original-width="3180" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrB6pqlWuleEflmE4u3PloVzVDA9N4utW4K123PLHocmLaIY28mx3hQCADk_RJ1dR25T6R-WX0RiuuI-lUoRF784NmlIWoGNCodAxQcPItHsHugmTa7S9ECuBCVi__4Ooo8y9JITvhGHQQKSvFDgtcA6ai0LBn3NsZriUU3AESsJPnY7QYngAbttu_fhg/s320/IMG_1646.jpeg" width="201" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the opening pages of Andy Mozina’s </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tandem</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the satirical, darkly comedic glimpse at ethics and redemption, Mike Kovacs, a recently divorced economics professor, kills two bicyclists while driving drunk and then removes the broken pieces of his car lying near the crashed tandem bike, applies windshield wiper fluid from his trunk to eliminate the paint marks on the bike, and drives off into the night toward the safety of his home in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You want to hate him, but Mozina presents him as a complicated human being you need to understand. It’s rare that a novel makes you want to know more about someone otherwise portrayed as a villain.</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reading Mike’s inner thoughts feels slightly voyeuristic, yet the narrative compels you to learn if Mike will decide to turn himself in and his self-absorbed justifications, while abhorrent, demand your attention. “Nothing could be done. They were completely and irrevocably dead.” “He dimly grasped that his instinct for self-excuse was limitless. He gave himself a sort of credit for this dim grasping. As Dave [his friend] had explained the distinction years ago, psychopaths were not self-aware; he was, at worst, a sociopath. The only thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t want to go to prison and lose all his money.” </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mike soon learns that the girl he killed is the daughter of neighbors, people he knows, and he’s drawn to the victim’s mother Claire. “If she were not married and if he had not killed her daughter, yes, he would be perfectly happy to ask her out. But she was married and he had killed her daughter. And yet . . .”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet, they do connect as Claire’s marriage suffers under the weight of the tragedy and Mike seems to be the only person who understands how Claire is suffering. Their magnetic attraction seems inevitable, while also being absolutely impossible and ridiculous. Only Mozina’s skill at enveloping the reader in this original dark comedy could make such a plot device work. But, work it does, pulling the reader in and refusing to let go. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Mike wrestles with his conscience, he visits a Catholic Church, confesses his crime, and seeks advice. In Mozina’s pitch-perfect, wry rendering, the priest tells him he isn’t a therapist and angers Mike by stating: “You want absolution, but you don’t want to be a member of the church.” Mike leaves the confessional enraged that the priest won’t advise him. He considers going to priests in different parishes, something of “A Pilgrimage for Penance.” “Maybe he would only visit churches named after Mary, where the outlook might be more merciful.” </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this Edgar Allan Poe meets John Irving novel of just over 200 pages, Kalamazoo College literature and creative writing Professor Andy Mozina deftly exercises a form of Poe’s use of unreliable narrators via both Mike and Claire and thus closes the distance between their faults and the reader’s ability to connect with them. He also reminds this reader of John Irving in his demonstration of ironic situations that disrupt and ruin lives. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing It Up: Read this short, sharp novel to find yourself unexpectedly empathizing with a drunk driver who kills a young couple and rationalizes his need to escape prosecution because it’s unlike anything else you’ll encounter. Follow Mike Kovac’s thoughts as he attempts to determine how to make amends and lead a better life. Observe the effects of the accident on the families of the victims. Fall under the spell of the dark comedy that thoroughly captures you despite your misgivings. A must for book clubs!</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 5 Stars </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: October 24, 2023</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Sushi with Green Tea Sorbet, Book Club</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website:</span><a href="https://annnapolitano.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></a><a href="https://andymozina.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://andymozina.com/</span></a></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Events and Readings: </span><a href="https://andymozina.com/events-and-readings/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://andymozina.com/events-and-readings/</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"[A] delicate web of intrigue. Fans of Kimberly Belle, Alex Kiester, and Greg Olear will appreciate Mozina's ability to blend the drama of a domestic thriller with the heartbreak of loss in many forms: death, divorce, and distance."—</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Booklist</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Reading </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tandem </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is an education in crime, punishment, and the dark side of human compassion —and somehow it also manages to be hilarious. Mozina’s signature hapless characters, through no fault of their own foolish decisions, can only manage to make difficult circumstances worse as they move from guilt to absurdity. A psychological tour de force!” Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once Upon a River </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Waters</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and a finalist for The National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Tandem </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is gripping, propulsive literary fiction at its finest. When economics professor Mike Kovacs causes a deadly accident, leading to an unconscionable crime, we’re ushered into a morality tale of the highest order. Mozina shows expert control over a shocking range of moods and motivations. By turns sad, frightening, disturbing, haunting, and and—most surprisingly —funny, this novel wrecked me in all the best ways. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tandem </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is at times difficult to read, yet even more difficult to stop reading.” —Darrin Doyle, author of </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Bear in Aisle 34</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A glimmering masterpiece about the slippery nature of truth and redemption, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tandem </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is at once riveting and contemplative, moving and hilarious, devastating and tender. It does what the best novels do: forever change how we see the world. —Erica Ferencik, bestselling author of </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Girl in Ice, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Into the Jungle The River at Night</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-90076304153999529342023-09-17T12:24:00.000-05:002023-09-17T12:24:44.119-05:00Harbor Springs Festival of the Book<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGWrD7S49Nmqgt0iZ_UzZ9cDVcCk8q86mj_9Gmt3eSf0htlTgqqr7jLyb4Lv20BnZDkac_cbqWYddnsEQ4UKD3xOs2BekJo2_ITCkrsBOWgWCtdqxo_3uqwTU8G6ipcH5nZ89YbMz6VgIY8rwb47PGPETDwpYHlCC4coNKZkhMTHH9PImpx2aJf-UW0cY/s1300/IMG_1623.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="866" data-original-width="1300" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGWrD7S49Nmqgt0iZ_UzZ9cDVcCk8q86mj_9Gmt3eSf0htlTgqqr7jLyb4Lv20BnZDkac_cbqWYddnsEQ4UKD3xOs2BekJo2_ITCkrsBOWgWCtdqxo_3uqwTU8G6ipcH5nZ89YbMz6VgIY8rwb47PGPETDwpYHlCC4coNKZkhMTHH9PImpx2aJf-UW0cY/s320/IMG_1623.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This week feels like Christmas felt when I was a child. It’s the Harbor Springs Festival of the Book in Harbor Springs, Michigan and I not only have the privilege of attending, but I also will be introducing fourteen authors when they read from their books. Festival registration is sold out, but you can read along with us. Below is a list of the featured books that I’ve read with a brief synopsis of each to whet your appetites. There’s enough variety to offer something for every literary taste. There are also several other authors attending whose works I haven’t yet read. Find them and other information about the festival including events that are open to the public and possible ticket availability at </span><a href="https://www.hsfotb.org/" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.hsfotb.org/</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. If you are registered for the festival, I’ve listed the schedule of the Book & Bag readings after the book synopses. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fiction</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fuentes, Javier, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Countries of Origin </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a page-turner that explores fear of falling in love, of being gay, and of not knowing where you belong because of immigration laws and class divides. Demitrio, who came to the U.S. as a child from Spain, is a highly regarded pastry chef who returns to the country he never knew because he fears deportation. He meets Jacobo, an extremely wealthy Spaniard, on the flight and their attraction leads to difficulties. The novel embeds the reader in Demitrio’s life and makes us care deeply about his decisions and the implications for society as a whole.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harding, Paul, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This Other Eden, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pulitzer Prize winner Harding’s novel is inspired by one of the first integrated places in the Northeast, an island off the Maine coast. The writing is luminous and lyrical, reading like a prose poem. In 1911, a Governor’s Council preaching eugenics examined and decided to remove the families that had been on the island since 1792. The mesmerizing, mixed Penobscot, African, and Irish characters, especially fair-skinned Ethan, a self-taught artist, are glorious. The descriptions of Ethan’s art are phenomenal and the way the book makes the reader ponder race and power makes it perfect for discussion. When Ethan first encountered ice, I felt like I saw it for the first time as well. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year, and it illuminates important issues. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Heller, Peter, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Last Ranger, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ren Hopper, now in his thirties, is a competent, cerebral Yellowstone Park ranger. He became a ranger after his wife died and he needed nature, and specifically fishing, to cope with his grief. His love of fishing comes from his estranged, alcoholic mother. Ren is ambivalent about life, but he isn’t equivocal about the stupidity of Yellowstone’s visitors leaving him feeling that his ilk will be the last to care enough about saving bears, bison, wolves, and nature. When he rescues his best friend Hilly after she’s been left to die in a wolf trap, he’s sure he knows who trapped and left her and tries to stop him before Hilly or others die. Gorgeous, poetic prose and sentences that beg to be read aloud make this character-driven novel unique. Heller’s fans should also read his magnificent </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dog Stars, The Painter, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the River.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jackson, Jenny, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pineapple Street </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a sharp, well-played comedy of manners with a subtle nod to finding meaning beyond one’s privileges. The Stockton family has quiet wealth. Tennis-playing, tablescape-making matriarch Tilda’s father and brother were New York Governors and her husband Chip also comes from generational wealth. They’ve just moved a few blocks into a smaller home in Brooklyn Heights allowing son Cord and his outsider, middle-class wife Sasha to move into, but not to alter their family home. Darley, the elder daughter, married to a brilliant, successful son of Korean immigrants, quit her finance job to rear her young children and signed off on her inheritance rather than ask her husband to sign a prenup. Much younger daughter Georgiana works for a nonprofit but spends most of her time playing tennis or partying until she falls in love and her life veers. The novel skews classism with cleverness and somehow makes you care about people you might not normally like. It’s deliciously observant while offering a hilarious escape. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marra, Anthony, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mercury Pictures Presents</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Maria escapes Mussolini’s Italy for California while her father remains there having been sentenced to “confino” for his anti-fascist activism. She begins as a typist at Mercury Pictures, works under the head of the studio, and soon becomes a producer. She falls in love with a Chinese-American actor who can't get work because of his ethnicity. The novel offers a detailed view of prewar Hollywood and the motion picture industry. The final chapters brilliantly tie the characters’ lives together and are exceptional. Clever dialogue and humor make misogyny and prejudice palatable reading.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miller, Nathaniel Ian, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sven leaves Stockholm in 1916 to work in the mines in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago, and begins keeping notes about his life. After losing an eye and becoming disfigured in an avalanche, he escapes farther from civilization to a desolate fjord with his faithful dog. Friendships with Finnish trapper Tapio and a well-read Scotsman help him survive and a surprise visitor arrives. This remarkable novel blends dry wit with lush, yet concise depictions of the harsh landscape and the belief that we all need someone to love. I adore every character in this wonder of a novel. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Millet, Lydia, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dinosaurs, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gil has more money than he’ll ever need so after his longtime girlfriend leaves him, he abandons New York for a new life in Phoenix. He walks the entire way learning about the land and himself. His new neighbors live in a glass house offering him uninterrupted access to their daily lives. He becomes close to them and their son, Tom, who’s being bullied at school. Gil astutely observes the nature around him and is alarmed when he finds numerous bird corpses shot by an anonymous hunter behind his home. His continued friendships with his New York mates and new neighbors offer a meditation on caring for ourselves, others, and our world. This is a kind novel that celebrates connection and love. I continue to find myself thinking about Gil when I walk.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Offill, Jenny, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Weather </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">focuses attention on Lizzie, a college librarian, who seems to be all things to those within her realm. She counsels her mother, tries to keep her brother safe and sober, and answers emails for a podcast about climate change and weather, yet just dropping her son off at school overwhelms her. Lizzie’s marriage feels tenuous yet kind. Offill’s taut sentences, wit, and piercing paragraphs break through the commonplace to create a powerful novel. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thai, Thao, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Banyan Moon </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">follows three generations of women beginning with Minh who left Vietnam with her two children in 1973. She's lived for decades in a deteriorating Gothic house where she raised her family. When her granddaughter Ann, newly pregnant and living with her professor boyfriend on a Michigan lake, learns of Minh’s death, she heads south to her estranged mother Hu’o’ng. Told in three viewpoints weaving between present-day Florida and 1960s Vietnam, the novel explores the power of secrets, inherited trauma, love, and the things we carry. Minh’s descriptions of Vietnam during the war and after the “white allies left,” are brilliant and haunting. Thai cleverly reveals the secrets in this novel at just the right time. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Warrell, Laura, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> embeds the reader in the lives of Circus Palmer, a jazz trumpet player and ladies’ man, and the complex women surrounding him. Circus walks away from a woman he loves upon learning that she’s pregnant and thus continues his longtime habit of emotional avoidance. Evading his teenage daughter Koko when her mother abandons her is different, or is it? Two sentences near the novel’s end show how love grows and changes. Quoting them would be a spoiler, so to paraphrase: somewhere over time, one becomes someone who has love and another becomes someone in need of it. The novel beautifully reflects the music playing in Circus’s mind.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zigman, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Small World </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">envisions the world of newly divorced Joyce who works at home in her Cambridge apartment. She welcomes her sister Lydia into her home when Lydia moves East after her divorce. Hoping to forge a new relationship and re-examine their childhood that dealt with the care of and the grief after the death of their disabled sister, the women are uneasy when loud neighbors move in above them and Joyce, in particular, finds herself adrift and annoyed. Dry humor and well-drawn characters make this family saga meaningful and poignant. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pavone, Chris, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two Nights in Lisbon, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ariel and John, her husband of less than a year, are in Lisbon on a business trip. On their first morning, Ariel awakens and John is gone. She soon receives a demand for 3 million euros. Within two days, Ariel and John’s lives are dissected by the police and the CIA. Is what happened to Ariel 14 years ago connected to John’s kidnapping? Is Ariel in danger because of a secret about a politician? This propulsive novel of love and power will keep you flipping the pages. Who can you believe?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Slocumb, Brendan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Symphony of Secrets </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Slocumb follows his blockbuster </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Violin Conspiracy </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with a tale weaving classical music and prejudice against Black scholars in the field. Frederic Delaney is Bern Hendrick’s favorite composer. Bern has devoted most of his academic career in musicology to studying Delaney’s masterpieces. The last of Delaney’s operas has been lost for decades so when the Delaney Foundation, the organization that funded Hendrick’s schooling, offers Bern the chance to work on the newly discovered lost opera manuscript, he's ecstatic. He brings in his friend Eboni, a computer analyst who’s worked on other operas, and together they find evidence of a fascinating Black woman who lived with Delaney who might have written some of his work. A clever mystery with an underlying message.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Swanson, Peter, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Kind Worth Saving </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">makes the reader wonder who the good guys are. Joan hires former teacher and police officer Henry Kimball to learn if her husband is cheating on her. Henry was Joan’s high school teacher and both were in the classroom when a student shot and killed Joan’s best friend then himself. Flashbacks to Joan and her husband Richard’s encounter as teens on vacation in Maine add an ominous note. The sinister twists in this character-driven mystery keep the reader guessing. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nonfiction </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finkel, Michael, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tells the surprising tale of Stéphane Breitwieser who began stealing art from small European museums at age 25. By the time he was caught, he'd stolen more than 200 times and his collection, which he kept in his attic rooms above his mother’s home, was thought to be worth $2 billion. He never wanted to sell his treasures; he simply enjoyed gazing upon them with his girlfriend beside him. Finkel’s research makes the bizarre story compelling. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Murphy, Finn, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rocky Mountain High: A Tale of Boom and Bust in the New Wild West, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When 61-year-old Murphy moves to Colorado he has his previous entrepreneurial success and enough capital to enter the booming legal hemp industry. What could go wrong with an enterprise where no one has experience, the land and short season work against raising the product, the market is mercurial at best, and shipping rules make no sense? Everything—and it does! Murphy’s humorous rendition of almost losing it all along with his clever and tender tales of the people he meets, make this a winner.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ruhl, Sarah,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Smile: A Memoir </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shares playwright Ruhl’s story of losing her ability to smile and move much of her face when she contracted Bell’s palsy after giving birth. Her opening sentences make the reader want to learn more: “Ten years ago, my smile walked off my face, and wandered out in the world. This is the story of my asking it to come back, this is a story of how I learned to make my way when my body stopped obeying my heart.” That’s all you need to know. Read it; it will touch you deeply.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Middle Grade Fiction</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Monsef, Kiyash, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once There Was, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">15-year-old Marjan’s veterinarian father was murdered and she’s left alone and adrift when she’s called to heal a mythological creature and learns that she’s part of an ancient line with the ability to heal fantastical animals. Tweens and teens will love meeting a griffin, a unicorn, and other beasts, but there’s still a murder to solve and Marjan’s grief to address. “But the people of the tribe understood some things can be true and not true at once, and that a story is a thread that can be woven into the world, until it is as solid as a carpet beneath one’s foot.” This book offers a magic carpet ride for those age ten and older.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Young Adult</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Craig, Erin A., </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">House of Roots and Ruin </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a stand-alone sequel to the 2019 hit </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Secrets of Salt and Sorrow. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This gothic thriller/fantasy is filled with ghosts, demons, and an imagined world that never interferes with the well-told story. Is Verity cursed? So many in her family have died that many consider them doomed. When Verity is commissioned to paint a portrait of Alexander, the disabled heir of a neighboring kingdom, she goes despite her older sister refusing her permission to leave. What secrets is Alexander’s father hiding? Teens will beg for a third installment. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stork, Francisco X., </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I Am Not Alone </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">features 17-year-old Alberto, an undocumented house painter living with his sister and her baby. Alberto hears voices that frighten him while creating fine pottery calms him. He meets Grace, a probable valedictorian living a structured life while confused after her father leaves her mother. When Alberto is mugged and accused of murder, Grace must decide whether to leave her safe cocoon to help him. The story illuminates early schizophrenia and mental health challenges and focuses on courage and kindness. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><h1 dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://www.hsfotb.org/2023-schedule/2023/8/22/book-amp-bag-readings" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 23.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Book & Bag Readings </span></a></h1><ul style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Friday, September 22, 2023</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">11:45 AM 1:30 PM</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Holy Childhood Parish Hall </span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 26pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beginning at 11:45, authors are introduced at 15-minute intervals to read selections from their featured works. This is a come-and-go session, where attendees may simply sit and listen or enjoy their lunch.</span></p></li></ul><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Javier Fuentes 11:45 am </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thao Thai 12:00 pm </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nathaniel Ian Miller - 12:15 pm </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Laura Warrell - 12:30 pm</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chris Pavone - 12:45 pm</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Laura Zigman - 1:00pm</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finn Murphy - 1:15 pm</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Introductions: Trina Hayes</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><ul style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saturday, September 23, 2023</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">11:45 AM 1:30 PM</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Holy Childhood Parish Hall </span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 26pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beginning at 11:45, authors are introduced at 15-minute intervals to read selections from their featured works. This is a come-and-go session, where attendees may simply sit and listen or enjoy their lunch.</span></p></li></ul><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Erin A. Craig - 11:45 am </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brendan Slocumb- 12:00 pm </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kiyash Monsef - 12:15 pm </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gina Balibrera (Good Hart Artist Residency) - 12:30</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anthony Marra - 12:45 pm</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Francisco X. Stork - 1:00 pm</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peter Swanson - 1:15 pm</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin: 12pt -13pt 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Introductions: Trina Hayes</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-17757780783722700272023-07-27T10:02:00.001-05:002023-07-27T10:36:14.176-05:00The Forger of Marseille by Linda Joy Myers<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJPvop1s_qIoh3pgMeYT2P57PyPcr_dTxX8BQjuEoDxA18xdI0RBTSS2HaZarlhCrAelqhBvxP8SvimG2M6ISWXHRq6X2iuTlpqt8WX3dKKL36GcjD0I7e_Phq8pk-_tl6qGmIIfACrA6UpB4wG6eXgTGW4QBxXgMV9mt81ehSdUgg6sRTkyHGgOSyfh0/s900/IMG_1564.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="730" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJPvop1s_qIoh3pgMeYT2P57PyPcr_dTxX8BQjuEoDxA18xdI0RBTSS2HaZarlhCrAelqhBvxP8SvimG2M6ISWXHRq6X2iuTlpqt8WX3dKKL36GcjD0I7e_Phq8pk-_tl6qGmIIfACrA6UpB4wG6eXgTGW4QBxXgMV9mt81ehSdUgg6sRTkyHGgOSyfh0/s320/IMG_1564.png" width="260" /></a></div><br /><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is it about historical fiction, especially stories about World War II in Europe, that so appeals to us? </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Forger of Marseille </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Linda Joy Myers offers clues to why we love such novels by telling the captivating tale of a nineteen-year-old Jewish artist who flees from Berlin to Paris in 1938 and then must flee again when the Nazis arrive in Paris. Along with thousands of other refugees, Sarah, now calling herself Simone, endures the harrowing journey through occupied France to Marseille where she becomes part of the resistance. Just when we think there's nothing new to learn about that period, Myers introduces us to the rarely told history of American journalist Varian Fry who arranged the escape of well-known historical figures like Marc Chagall and Andre Breton and to Church of Scotland minister Donald Caskie who helped close to 500 Allied service personnel flee France.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sarah had fallen in love with César, a former doctor, whose time fighting the fascists in Spain had led him to work in the underground in Paris while fighting the demons of his previous life. Sarah had used her artistry to become a master forger in Paris where she created new papers for those in need. When she, César, and Mr. Lieb, the family friend and violin maker extraordinaire, who acts as a father figure to her, arrive in Marseilles, the Gestapo is on their trail, but they still feel compelled to risk their lives to help others gain safety. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Using Sarah/Simone’s artistic abilities so ingeniously to create documents that fool the Nazis sets this novel apart from others that simply share the facts. The love story between César and Sarah also makes the novel sing and makes the reader care about them both. Author Myers is a therapist who has researched and worked with intergenerational trauma and it shows in her caring treatment of César and his experiences in Franco’s Spain and of the characters who fled the Nazis repeatedly.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up: We can only eradicate injustice if we pay attention to how it was able to succeed in history. Novels like </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Forger of Marseille</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> show us the complicity of France in betraying its countrymen and enabling the Nazis to consolidate power. Read this novel to enter the compelling world of a young Jewish artist and her Spanish boyfriend who risk everything to help others escape and prove that each of us has something to offer to combat evil. Devour it to follow the arduous journeys many made through the Pyrenees to escape and to feel the gusting winds, the crevices, the rocky switchbacks, and the slippery stones of the steep trek toward the Spanish border. Myers doesn't simply report history, she makes it come alive. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An article you must read to understand the inspiration for the novel: </span><a href="https://readherlikeanopenbook.com/2023/07/11/finding-cesar-linda-joy-myers-on-conducting-research-in-france-for-her-wwii-novel-the-forger-of-marseilles/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://readherlikeanopenbook.com/2023/07/11/finding-cesar-linda-joy-myers-on-conducting-research-in-france-for-her-wwii-novel-the-forger-of-marseilles/</span></a></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 4 Stars </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: July 11, 2023</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Fiction, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Pigeon Pie, Super Nutrition, Book Club</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://lindajoymyersauthor.com/">https://lindajoymyersauthor.com/</a> </p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publishers Weekly: </span><a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781647422318" style="text-decoration: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781647422318</span></a></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“In this carefully researched and crafted novel, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Forger of Marseilles</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Linda Joy Myers tells the story of resistance by those who risked their lives to save others—one of the few bright spots in the Holocaust. While accurately portraying what went on in France in 1940, Myers weaves elements of love, tension, art, music, and the gradual unfolding of her characters as they begin to trust one another. Myers draws the reader in with her descriptive prose and insight into what individuals endured during that horrific time.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Merle R. Saferstein, retired Director of Educational Outreach at the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center in South Florida</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This well-paced story of an artist turned forger in WWII era France weaves fictional characters with real-life people in a novel of gripping authenticity.” —Barbara Stark Nemon, award-winning author if </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even in Darkness and Hard Cider</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Myers movingly conveys the traumas faced by her Jewish characters who flee Nazi Germany only to find themselves caught up in the turmoil of the 1940 Paris exodus and the early months of the occupation of France. Their involvement in Marseille’s growing resistance movement highlights the crucial work of Varian Fry and Donald Caskie, who aided the escape of countless individuals pursued by the authorities. In this gripping story of a tumultuous period of history, Myers offers us a vivid and compelling read.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Hanna Diamond, author of </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fleeing Hitler</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and professor of French History at Cardiff University</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-88649319274271800942023-05-29T19:24:00.000-05:002023-05-30T06:43:41.211-05:00Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvTW5JLcFp6fLzZjuob8gx2oOeGfrQjnWlFRhbTce10gVdc6fPdseAelQ8uySH5wvkK-LU36FWu5vmOzzwlobC5pmUBCpN0fO3mezN2Q2x1FEk2FN1UfiRpQ9NorPiPR94KFb0Bya0BQob74yJMegccmOcd66wiJLvs905tiJtbY6oOJsepjwJFWWZ/s1024/IMG_1491.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="660" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvTW5JLcFp6fLzZjuob8gx2oOeGfrQjnWlFRhbTce10gVdc6fPdseAelQ8uySH5wvkK-LU36FWu5vmOzzwlobC5pmUBCpN0fO3mezN2Q2x1FEk2FN1UfiRpQ9NorPiPR94KFb0Bya0BQob74yJMegccmOcd66wiJLvs905tiJtbY6oOJsepjwJFWWZ/s320/IMG_1491.jpeg" width="206" /></a></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good Night, Irene </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Luis Alberto Urrea</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">introduces the little-known World War II Red Cross Clubmobile corps and the volunteer “Donut Dollies,” women who made and served coffee and donuts to GIs in England and Europe. While working to bolster morale among the troops, these women served alongside the soldiers under the most difficult and harrowing circumstances. </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good Night, Irene, </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">an exceptional novel,</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">focuses primarily on two volunteers: Irene, a privileged but unhappy New Yorker, and Dorothy, an Indiana farm girl who's lost both the farm and her family. </span><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The novel begins when Irene leaves New York and an abusive fiancé for training in Washington, D. C. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">November 1943</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dear Mother, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have so much to tell you, but so much I can't say. I am sorry that I won't be home for the holidays and it might be a while before I see you again. As soon as I am free to explain, I believe you will be proud of me. I have joined the Red Cross and am going to do my part.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had to make a change. I will explain more when I can.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love, Irene</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After stateside training, the volunteers arrive in England and Urrea captures their lives and intertwines their character development with descriptions of the countryside and the sad beauty of a Luftwaffe attack as the women’s train rolls into London’s Euston Station. “Flickering orange flames in the distance launched dense smoke columns into the sky. The glow of fires showed through the ruins of buildings. Churches that had already been reduced to shells by the Blitz were now transformed into enormous candles.” </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Irene and Dorothy begin to see the value of their role in the war as they watch men await their fellow pilots return from battle and they share in their anguish when someone is feared lost. Irene pens another letter home despite her mother not having written back.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“London, December 21, 1943</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dear Mother, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you were wondering what I'm doing here. . . </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He hit me.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Merry Christmas, Mother.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good night, Irene”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soon the women and their Clubmobile, a mobile unit with two large coffee urns, a record player, and a donut-making machine, cross the English Channel and serve alongside General Patton’s 3rd Army from the beaches of Normandy through France and Germany facing bombings, attacks, and eventually the horrors of Buchenwald. Dorothy, a tall, no-nonsense woman, and Irene, an artsy city girl, become close as they share living among soldiers, working beyond what seems physically possible, and suffering PTSD from all they've endured. Urrea imbues Irene, Dorothy, and many of the soldiers and others they meet with realistically endearing senses of humor that make the most difficult of their experiences bearable. He also uses engaging word pictures to portray the land they traverse so that the reader can see that these aren't just battle locales, they're actual places where people live and love. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The story of these women is important to Urrea. His mother was a Clubmobile volunteer who had nightmares every night he can remember. Urrea and his wife Cindy, a former reporter who helped research the novel, found Urrea’s mother’s Clubmobile partner living only two hours from them and the woman shared remarkable insights and letters that helped Urrea tell the story with facts, compassion, and infinite care. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love abounds in this novel—love infused with the sadness of war alongside the joy found in the bonds of friendships made while serving together. Luis Alberto Urrea has given the world award-winning novels, poetry, and nonfiction, but </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good Night, Irene </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">may be his best with its poetic rendering of a forgotten piece of history and a powerful ending that fits perfectly.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Good Night, Irene </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a novel that reveals the truth about World War II in Europe and depicts it more vividly than nonfiction ever could. In </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good Night, Irene, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we feel what Irene and Dorothy felt, we laugh with them, we watch them grow stronger, and we ache when they suffer and are near the breaking point from living through such trauma. <i>Good Night, Irene </i>is the best book I’ve read this year and I’ve read more than fifty and several of them have been outstanding. If you loved Kristin Hannah’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Nightingale </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Suite Française </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Irène Némirovsky, you will find yourself equally immersed in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good Night, Irene. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Footnote: Read this article for a beautiful picture of Urrea and for more in-depth information about his mother: </span><a href="https://www.pw.org/content/bringing_the_joy_a_profile_of_luis_alberto_urrea" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.pw.org/content/bringing_the_joy_a_profile_of_luis_alberto_urrea</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div><br /></div><span><span style="font-family: arial;">Chicago area readers: The book launch event will be tonight, May 30 at 7 p.m. at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, IL. If you haven’t heard Luis speak, you’re in for a treat. Ticket information </span><a href="https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/event" style="font-family: arial;">here</a>. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">He’ll also be at bookstores across the country in the coming weeks. </span></div><div><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 5 Stars </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: May 30, 2023</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Pigeon Pie, Super Nutrition, Book Club</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="http://luisurrea.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://luisurrea.com/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Interview with the Author: </span><a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/91663-a-ballad-for-unsung-heroes-pw-talks-with-luis-alberto-urrea.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/91663-a-ballad-for-unsung-heroes-pw-talks-with-luis-alberto-urrea.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BookPage: </span><a href="https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/good-night-irene-luis-alberto-urrea-book-review/">https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/good-night-irene-luis-alberto-urrea-book-review/</a> </p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/luis-alberto-urrea/good-night-irene/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/luis-alberto-urrea/good-night-irene/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NPR: </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/22/1177057433/luis-alberto-urrea-good-night-irene-review" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.npr.org/2023/05/22/1177057433/luis-alberto-urrea-good-night-irene-review</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publishers Weekly: </span><a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/9780316265850" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.publishersweekly.com/9780316265850</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Urrea’s touch is sure, his exuberance carries you through . . . He is a generous writer, not just in his approach to his craft but in the broader sense of what he feels necessary to capture about life itself.” —Financial Times</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good Night, Irene</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a beautiful, heartfelt novel that celebrates the intense power and durability of female friendship while shining a light on one of the fascinating lost women’s stories of World War II. Inspired by his own family history—and his mother’s heroism as a Red Cross volunteer during the war—Luis Urrea has created an indelible portrait of women’s courage under extreme adversity. Powerful, uplifting, and deeply personal, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good night, Irene </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a story of survival, camaraderie, and courage on the front line.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Nightingale </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Four Winds</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Every once in a while the universe opens its heart and pulls out a book like this novel, gifting it to the cosmos. In </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good Night, Irene</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a new element has been created, and the literary world is reborn in the image of Luis Alberto Urrea. His voice comes alive on every page of this magnificent novel.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Many Daughters of Afong Moy and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></div>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-84163461064010341172023-05-29T08:21:00.001-05:002023-05-29T08:45:03.385-05:00The Museum of Ordinary People by Mike Gayle<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioM-DHHCaSexaW2D8vmS2CoLL3YTEsT8nOxhPjMg-fZE7KxwOL3mKE9ua1c2ZHxwgEoT5GKXKqOX4e0IU-Z9CVhXtuDWs5k_X0PYXGl459kj27F-OFHGmRWFmv10fJRW6XN_Vv5a9Ifc62N8hPHM0SGWECl1ID5VK83MQE-4o4nfYXIiiDWatCk5fv/s1024/IMG_1490.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="672" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioM-DHHCaSexaW2D8vmS2CoLL3YTEsT8nOxhPjMg-fZE7KxwOL3mKE9ua1c2ZHxwgEoT5GKXKqOX4e0IU-Z9CVhXtuDWs5k_X0PYXGl459kj27F-OFHGmRWFmv10fJRW6XN_Vv5a9Ifc62N8hPHM0SGWECl1ID5VK83MQE-4o4nfYXIiiDWatCk5fv/s320/IMG_1490.jpeg" width="210" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>The Museum of Ordinary People </i>by Mike Gayle is a feel-good, meringue-with-ice-cream-strawberries-and-hot-fudge dessert of a novel. I loved Gayle’s <i><a href="http://hungryforgoodbooks.blogspot.com/2021/07/all-lonely-people-by-mike-gayle.html">All the Lonely People</a> </i>and his latest shares the same sensitivity. Jess</span> is overwhelmed with grief after her Trinidadian mother’s recent death. After cleaning out her mother's home, Jess has kept several momentos and has given many of her mother’s other possessions to charity shops. Jess shares an apartment with her white boyfriend Guy, a minimalist, who enjoys his carefully curated modern apartment. The apartment isn't large and Jess understands that there isn't room for the set of encyclopedias her mother gave her when she was eleven so she tries to donate them, but no charity shops will accept them and she can't bear to think of throwing them away. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Jess’s friend Luce learns of an odd space called the Museum of Ordinary People housed in a warehouse that takes such items so Jess visits the warehouse and meets Alex who has just inherited the warehouse and accompanying business. He's planning to sell it, but when Jess proposes a collaboration, a dream is born. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Later, two major secrets are revealed. They almost feel unexpected, yet they make sense and add to the fairytale quality of the book. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">My favorite part of this novel is the following quote which has had me thinking for days:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“<i>The older you get the more home becomes about people rather than place. The older you get the more roots are about where you want to be rather than where you come from.” </i>Jess needs to find out where she wants to be, but first she must deal with where she comes from. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Summing it Up: if you're looking for a diversion and a charmer, <i>The Museum of Ordinary People </i>is just what you want. It sweetly shows how tied we are to possessions that evoke memories of those we've lost and how we can find ways to retain those recollections. It's a great beach read. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Rating: 4 Stars</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Publication Date: May 30, 2023 (U. S.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Categories: Dessert, Fiction, Sweet Bean Paste</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Author Website: </span><a href="http://www.mikegayle.co.uk/">http://www.mikegayle.co.uk/</a> </p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mike-gayle/the-museum-of-ordinary-people/">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mike-gayle/the-museum-of-ordinary-people/</a> </p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Moving and heartwarming, this is a story about love and loss and holding onto the memories that make us who we are. Fans of character-driven relationship fiction by Clare Pooley, Rachel Joyce, and Freya Sampson will want to pick this one up.” —Booklist</span></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-26324088121263303752023-05-15T05:59:00.000-05:002023-05-15T05:59:03.473-05:00Town and Gown by Jan English Leary<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6vPx2S_seSvI6Ytt53QSO8HVK4qfKl4F1PK3rQkATFFB4sciSmKRuJZ61eLzYXgE5uQUKHVvH_8bfQPAygEFVw6-I80AnxQNYB94rMLQyDl2WezHYySAeQsiPQKlmN5Ipev-18lGoCkYVfpu3KzNuqMt0iypJ--GV9UGOhzN5RCPmFWS0R6nzReG_/s762/IMG_1479.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6vPx2S_seSvI6Ytt53QSO8HVK4qfKl4F1PK3rQkATFFB4sciSmKRuJZ61eLzYXgE5uQUKHVvH_8bfQPAygEFVw6-I80AnxQNYB94rMLQyDl2WezHYySAeQsiPQKlmN5Ipev-18lGoCkYVfpu3KzNuqMt0iypJ--GV9UGOhzN5RCPmFWS0R6nzReG_/s320/IMG_1479.webp" width="214" /></a></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it possible to live in a small town while keeping a big secret? If it is, how will holding that secret change you and others who don’t know of its possible impact on them? </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Town and Gown </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Jan English Leary probes the consequences of a big secret in the alternating stories of two young women who grew up in a small, rural college town in Pennsylvania. The novel begins when Wanda and Callie, the main characters, are in high school and Leary, who was a teacher in Chicago for many years, captures school life and the highs and lows of being a teen beautifully.</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wanda is from a farm family and is therefore not deemed popular or smart enough for college and success beyond her current status. She’s highly intelligent, though, and wants to go to college and become a nurse, but she follows the expected path and marries her aimless high school boyfriend David. After losing his job, David joins the Army without telling Wanda and he’s killed in Iraq. Upon learning of his death, in her grief, Wanda foolishly sleeps with Whit, the annoying, genius son of a local college professor. When she learns she’s pregnant, Wanda allows everyone to believe that the baby is her husband’s. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meanwhile, Callie, a professor’s daughter, second in her class, and girlfriend of the star athlete, is accepted at a fine school, but her parents won’t let her go. She starts classes at home and begins clandestinely sleeping with her French professor, a man ten years her senior. They run away together to Martinique and then to New York City where he hits her so she escapes and builds a new life in Chicago.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back in Pennsylvania, Macky, Wanda’s son, is brilliant and like his biological father, doesn’t fit in well with other kids. His teacher doesn’t believe that he can read and he’s blamed when others bully him. “He just feels things more than most kids do.” Wanda begins teaching him at home and takes him with her when she cleans houses. She cleans for Callie’s mother and one day finds her confused and ill and calls Callie who she believes is a privileged snob. After Callie arrives and settles in she’s with Wanda and Macky when Macky has a seemingly uncontrollable tantrum. Callie knows what Macky needs when she sees his distress and she holds him tightly until he calms. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Callie asks Wanda, “He’s really sensitive, right?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sounds, smells?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Uh huh.”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally having someone recognize Macky for who he is, Wanda, in her vulnerability, tells Callie her secret. After that Wanda realizes she has to decide whether to tell Macky’s grandparents of his true parentage. “Who knew the right thing to do, . . . How does someone untangle a big knotted mess?” </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wanda and Callie see that they need each other and their friendship grows. Wanda helps Callie find a local person to care for her mother. Callie supports Wanda as she decides whether to share her secret.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The characters, even the most minor ones, in this page-turner, are unique, well-developed, and intriguing. The focus is on Callie and Wanda, but the male characters and the mothers all feel like real people you’d meet where you live.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up: If you’re looking for a character-driven, propulsive novel that explores the importance of being true to self while also examining the dangers of keeping secrets, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Town and Gown </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is just the book for you. This engaging novel that’s packed with great mother and mother-figure characters as well as realistic men belongs in every hammock this coming Memorial Day weekend. It also has a hope-filled ending that readers will appreciate. You can’t go wrong with </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Town and Gown. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is an original paperback and is also available as an ebook for $4.99.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note to Chicago area readers: Leary, who lives in Chicago, captures the city well. I loved seeing Flossmoor, the suburb less than a mile from where I live, mentioned as Callie’s roommate’s hometown. If you live in the area, the book’s launch will be at <a href="https://www.womenandchildrenfirst.com/">Women and Children First</a> on Tuesday, May 30 at 7 p.m. CDT where Leary will be in conversation with author Lynn Sloan.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 4 Stars </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: May 15, 2023</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Fiction, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Book Club</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jan-english-leary/town-and-gown/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jan-english-leary/town-and-gown/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jan English Leary’s latest novel sweeps the reader into the lives of two women from the same small town as they launch into adulthood. Wanda, a farm girl, marries her high school boyfriend, works at the local bakery, and hopes to someday start a family. Callie, the daughter of a college professor, dreams of bigger adventures far from her overprotective parents and the college town mentality. With writing deeply-rooted in place and character, Leary masterfully immerses us in the lives of these two women as they set out on separate journeys, only to discover the many ways their paths intersect. Town and Gown is a moving portrayal of resiliency and second chances, reminding us that while we can't always choose our circumstances, there's power to be found in how we respond.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">— Marcie Roman, author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Journey to the Parallels</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I admire the no-frills, and no-waste, prose Jan English Leary deploys in her novel Town and Gown to narrate the lives of two women growing up–one from the farm and one from the hill–in a college village in the northeast. Despite dread events and bleak prospects that might give Greek drama a run for its money, there is a kind of admirable resilience here, too. Lacking a scintilla of nostalgia, this fast paced and gripping novel does not pine for lost glory days, but instead offers a bracing account of today’s small-town America with a subtle but potent feminist slant.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">— Charles Lamar Phillips, author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Estranged </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Dead South</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This lively, entertaining novel features both deeply felt characters and an engaging plot. It immerses us in the struggles of two young women—one a farmer's daughter, the other a professor's child—as they seek to establish themselves in the world. Through their stories, we see how simple categories, such as the divide between the intellectual and the agrarian, can be limiting, and we come to question easy binaries concerning social status and destiny. The novel also explores the assumptions we make about each other and the kinds of compromises–some big, some small–we all must learn to live with as the inevitable result of creating a life. Town and Gown is an empathetic and insightful page turner of a novel, one that I won't soon forget.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Beth Castrodale, author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In This Ground </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I Mean You No Harm</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-4394421440516615092023-04-18T14:32:00.004-05:002023-04-20T06:35:39.595-05:00Spring Mysteries, Suspense Novels, and Thrillers<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDo1mn4gLyd-ckLwDfUiiejmIJyW1JJvrIsBTUYLDiev3CoSCZcBwqWvUUflIq_GNcOCukxCN1t787mYQaEufY5J3lTOXsX3Wj64djq-aIJMpQNhiAu2T-j54pP-B1aLVTjdBm4C6YpUd40TIc0wBIgNAu0UmM5e3TcJGT76FwSLLZHroE_9iXmHzJ/s283/4F545D79-92A7-4293-A214-53799AC7E2AE.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="178" data-original-width="283" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDo1mn4gLyd-ckLwDfUiiejmIJyW1JJvrIsBTUYLDiev3CoSCZcBwqWvUUflIq_GNcOCukxCN1t787mYQaEufY5J3lTOXsX3Wj64djq-aIJMpQNhiAu2T-j54pP-B1aLVTjdBm4C6YpUd40TIc0wBIgNAu0UmM5e3TcJGT76FwSLLZHroE_9iXmHzJ/s1600/4F545D79-92A7-4293-A214-53799AC7E2AE.jpeg" width="283" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-580eda89-7fff-1d27-81a9-e68c2dd9a1d3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Spring in Chicago this year has felt like whiplash as it took us from days of sun and temps in the eighties last week to this week with a touch of snow, lower temperatures, and rain. Those ups and downs are similar to the twists and turns found in mysteries, suspense novels, and thrillers. Rainy weather calls for time inside reading. After washing the lawn furniture, cleaning the grill, and sweeping out the garage, we need books that grab us and pull us in from the first page. Mysteries, suspense novels, and thrillers do just that. Here are some delicious, newly published titles along with one that came out last year. <i>Hard Rain </i>and <i>Symphony of Secrets </i>are out today and <i>With My Little Eye </i>publishes next Tuesday. </span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE23mAB9oNqjx8TfQvPrNx9X-QaBVgQIDlqeyUz38zCOE4-fcaHJ3pkerXfPwyDjz1R6_9utO4DZf1F22GoCIwDFlulkQLkwNdMjRIroNXpemXMBrnUxznS5P-k94fRSHnuLMOfoUaEFhGH2_1xldSuU7t3-cqh1EgC9pYPROVzqi8fu7A0NtNuMK0/s450/5C2E7A8B-9189-4C28-AC45-B02C651F84CB.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE23mAB9oNqjx8TfQvPrNx9X-QaBVgQIDlqeyUz38zCOE4-fcaHJ3pkerXfPwyDjz1R6_9utO4DZf1F22GoCIwDFlulkQLkwNdMjRIroNXpemXMBrnUxznS5P-k94fRSHnuLMOfoUaEFhGH2_1xldSuU7t3-cqh1EgC9pYPROVzqi8fu7A0NtNuMK0/w133-h200/5C2E7A8B-9189-4C28-AC45-B02C651F84CB.jpeg" width="133" /></a></div>*<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Don’t Know Tough </b></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Eli Cranor</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Friday Night Lights </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">meets Ron Rash in a rural Arkansas suspense thriller portraying high school football star Billy Lowe, an angry kid who’s constantly terrorized by his mother’s boyfriend. When Billy snaps on the field, his new, born-again Christian, fresh-from-California, coach thinks he can save Billy. When the boyfriend is found murdered in the Lowe’s trailer, Billy is the prime suspect and the town’s playoff hopes may be over. This stellar Edgar-nominated debut is tough and tender. CC/GS/GPR, BC (2022)</span><p></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Hard Rain </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Samantha Jayne Allen </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMbBY0PMMglIXtYH0dlxsC9r47h-4OhVJsssCy430sIU1BN9oUeezLWUYrk3wDfus8nx2TGtrKcXkCb0FP7FA2o-X6gEhRTx7iPRQG0InNPc71C1_oPkz3gwEy1io9JRyzr9PVj9VpyCMm6UEXrpsau6yNmT3Ksfel_ns5pvxBj5siy2z1EACBLDf8/s277/F3EE62C4-7451-4EDA-8EE6-1A0492346EBD.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="182" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMbBY0PMMglIXtYH0dlxsC9r47h-4OhVJsssCy430sIU1BN9oUeezLWUYrk3wDfus8nx2TGtrKcXkCb0FP7FA2o-X6gEhRTx7iPRQG0InNPc71C1_oPkz3gwEy1io9JRyzr9PVj9VpyCMm6UEXrpsau6yNmT3Ksfel_ns5pvxBj5siy2z1EACBLDf8/w131-h200/F3EE62C4-7451-4EDA-8EE6-1A0492346EBD.png" width="131" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a stand-alone mystery, the second in the Annie McIntyre series focusing on Annie’s new career as a private investigator when she returns to her small Texas town after college. A horrific flood destroys several homes where low-income families live. Annie’s high school classmate Bethany survived the flood after a man in a tree pulled her to safety. She fears he may have died but wants to find him to thank him so she hires Annie. Annie’s search leads her to discover a body in a car in the river and that leads to a connection to Bethany’s church. Samantha Jayne Allen has proven that she can capture rural Texas and is a master of propulsive action. Reading </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pay Dirt Road</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Allen’s first in the series, a book shortlisted for the Hammett Prize, will offer insight into Annie, but this sharp, twisty, suspense thriller is stellar on its own. CC</span><p></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY8g67joJ2DFatQjQg_X8qGuQHHJlD3-dUs0Cij1Vuqx2iNeQcSr7gVAkO-hCztHxHt5rg6VSvCMQe-myLZBJ4Fqge8NVKQBjMlPZZD3j0aOOqgkrkkkD1uMCVmTHsK2hzD0LNoc54zEWP31bRYg4D3hNG2YRe30qzELCVvnGHVgd2tf6x-vdKTRx6/s450/95B72BB0-A635-4CE1-A267-880FA0C0DB27.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="298" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY8g67joJ2DFatQjQg_X8qGuQHHJlD3-dUs0Cij1Vuqx2iNeQcSr7gVAkO-hCztHxHt5rg6VSvCMQe-myLZBJ4Fqge8NVKQBjMlPZZD3j0aOOqgkrkkkD1uMCVmTHsK2hzD0LNoc54zEWP31bRYg4D3hNG2YRe30qzELCVvnGHVgd2tf6x-vdKTRx6/w133-h200/95B72BB0-A635-4CE1-A267-880FA0C0DB27.jpeg" width="133" /></a></div>*<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I Have Some Questions for You </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Rebecca Makkai </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">takes Podcaster Bodie Kane back to the 1990s murder of Thalia, her boarding school roommate. Bodie returns to campus to teach students how to create podcasts and one pupil finds information that could free the man convicted of the crime. Makkai’s brilliant use of a list to highlight the seemingly endless sexual assaults of young girls is reminiscent of the best work by Julie Otsuka. I couldn’t stop thinking about Brett Cavanaugh and others as I read. Makkai is one of the best authors writing today. Perfect for book clubs. GPR/CC/SN, BC</span><p></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+The Only Survivors </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Megan Miranda, </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijYA_q2Xhgk8yCMbaRZ9WSUYtWJbyH0zhfqa2DMrGppe8EAWclE8wRPM57s9aJoIQ6DWipOm0EgHO-iWsiyxj6AwXEpNwCEG258VaAAm9cdpTmWmErOQR1oCjM4Anwgnsh-M7hL9Bo-LCGC0RNAXYCt1jeDfpCOXM7drMbMxMn9OWnjGMYiGvtT3OO/s400/CB567AEE-650D-4D13-9242-94DF41D43001.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="264" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijYA_q2Xhgk8yCMbaRZ9WSUYtWJbyH0zhfqa2DMrGppe8EAWclE8wRPM57s9aJoIQ6DWipOm0EgHO-iWsiyxj6AwXEpNwCEG258VaAAm9cdpTmWmErOQR1oCjM4Anwgnsh-M7hL9Bo-LCGC0RNAXYCt1jeDfpCOXM7drMbMxMn9OWnjGMYiGvtT3OO/w132-h200/CB567AEE-650D-4D13-9242-94DF41D43001.jpeg" width="132" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ten years ago they were the nine survivors of a deadly crash killing several of their high school classmates and two teachers. They gather every year on the anniversary of the accident in a cottage on the Outer Banks. One of them died by suicide on an anniversary and Cassidy has cut herself off from them until she receives a text with the obituary of another survivor so she joins the others at the cottage. They’re down to seven when another disappears. With flashbacks to the aftermath of the wreck and multiple twists and turns, this builds to a strong climax. Megan Miranda never disappoints. CC/GS</span><p></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4VJhkJkhisuGZ2kq4NyQPaoCD02Osf1oH0mE5Bm4uUXseguys3_FhAUbVBbK1x_PM702iPECwS9eKVRTbaTNxEWiWMhLSQSJ9HUpksGmQpOwOaBjXnMieHnl7PFsf-cV4ThRV3s6Aru5VHJLxrEzl-b8wdPwbXa0gp3OQWPhONLEzVfMBSHOxLT3U/s1147/6C33D678-45D7-4AB6-9685-2D28A739BF68.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1147" data-original-width="790" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4VJhkJkhisuGZ2kq4NyQPaoCD02Osf1oH0mE5Bm4uUXseguys3_FhAUbVBbK1x_PM702iPECwS9eKVRTbaTNxEWiWMhLSQSJ9HUpksGmQpOwOaBjXnMieHnl7PFsf-cV4ThRV3s6Aru5VHJLxrEzl-b8wdPwbXa0gp3OQWPhONLEzVfMBSHOxLT3U/w138-h200/6C33D678-45D7-4AB6-9685-2D28A739BF68.jpeg" width="138" /></a></div>+<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reef Road </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Deborah Goodrich Royce </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">showcases Royce’s ability to infuse a story with twists that grab the reader. The plot hinges on the unsolved murder of a 12-year-old girl in 1948, but the action takes place at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 when two unreliable narrators, a wife whose family has disappeared and a writer, meet. The writer befriends the wife and then stalks and spies on her. This taut, haunting thriller is both elegant and creepy. Royce is becoming a uniquely talented master of the unexpected. CC</span><p></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Symphony of Secrets </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Brendan Slocumb</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijpubkN-0L-aYzBKdyn53ma2IV4W8sEY5b0ik34fb_HmIb4rHZdGhVwd-oActWB50a0gYW0u0q0Rj8_6yib3FRvpjdHAu_O0EAuDjZ_H16wcrgHn5_ofIe6TCw2_KVN5sl0_ChYRgWKg7f1nJ6HOCYjUBHlSP-oCTVBhd3DOoWRlp-XzgetH23Ztco/s450/69CF7B04-D64A-4CA8-8FEA-EFBA232FB5C9.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="296" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijpubkN-0L-aYzBKdyn53ma2IV4W8sEY5b0ik34fb_HmIb4rHZdGhVwd-oActWB50a0gYW0u0q0Rj8_6yib3FRvpjdHAu_O0EAuDjZ_H16wcrgHn5_ofIe6TCw2_KVN5sl0_ChYRgWKg7f1nJ6HOCYjUBHlSP-oCTVBhd3DOoWRlp-XzgetH23Ztco/w131-h200/69CF7B04-D64A-4CA8-8FEA-EFBA232FB5C9.jpeg" width="131" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Slocumb follows his blockbuster <i>The</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Violin Conspiracy </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with a tale weaving classical music and prejudice against Black scholars in the field. Frederic Delaney is Bern Hendrick’s favorite composer. Bern has devoted most of his academic career in musicology to studying Delaney’s masterpieces. The last of Delaney’s operas has been lost for decades so when the Delaney Foundation, the organization that funded Hendrick’s schooling, offers Bern the chance to work on the newly discovered lost opera manuscript, he's ecstatic. He brings in his friend Eboni, a computer analyst who’s worked on other operas, and together they find evidence of a Black woman who lived with Delaney who might have written some of his work. A clever mystery. CC/GS/SN</span><p></p><p><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With My Little Eye </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Joshilyn Jackson </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0SW5dGV4NW7hLSyYJzBj35Gvpz56TUasUEc0dP68GVbNEXq8ykaekSpqb3jjgl_iT-vL421uSVWijwZ68trDdkwAbF0Kaku9-rYRZbGVhvtG4ZBUnpXTrPKl4KSRfFEBDfD2BbaxG0HwWik7IFlxREMrNporRFSQJ0xRa6V1z0QUzNyTV6mbcBFag/s499/B0B29C07-12CD-4C2D-A36D-AB7910421381.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="331" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0SW5dGV4NW7hLSyYJzBj35Gvpz56TUasUEc0dP68GVbNEXq8ykaekSpqb3jjgl_iT-vL421uSVWijwZ68trDdkwAbF0Kaku9-rYRZbGVhvtG4ZBUnpXTrPKl4KSRfFEBDfD2BbaxG0HwWik7IFlxREMrNporRFSQJ0xRa6V1z0QUzNyTV6mbcBFag/w133-h200/B0B29C07-12CD-4C2D-A36D-AB7910421381.jpeg" width="133" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">is the suspense-filled tale of Meribel Mills, a former sitcom celebrity being stalked by “Marker Man” who sends her creepy, threatening letters using scented markers. She and Honor, her twelve-year-old neurodivergent daughter, escape LA for Atlanta. Could the stalker be her ex-husband, her new boyfriend, her helpful neighbor, or someone else? Jackson’s foray into suspense produces anxiety-inducing moments and memorable characters. Honor is a fabulous, multi-dimensional charmer. Kudos to Jackson for including her in this fast-paced drama. CC/GS (Publication date: April 25.)</span><p></p><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">F.Y.I.: A reader noticed that several of these authors have appeared at the <a href="https://www.hsfotb.org/">Harbor Springs Festival of the Book</a>. Five of them are Festival alums. I first encountered Samantha Jayne Allen, Megan Miranda, and Deborah Goodrich Royce at the festival. Joshilyn Jackson and Rebecca Makkai, whose books I’d previously read and loved, have also appeared at the festival. It's a great place to hear both new authors and those you already love. This year’s festival is September 22-24. </span></div>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-5050641784306943282023-04-04T06:51:00.003-05:002023-04-04T07:19:41.415-05:00Because I Loved You by Donnaldson Brown<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOdVekUx8tMmEa9sKnTtQZrpxbK_7xNvmkO3UM9t5caiWR2yBaawMdtJUxMslfPlL9LmaCxyUL01NXjrgwSbGggbqAqj81LBaSKQrIePbZ6lAHiSSsEtXsfC2RMBgqzsLxomcDzrb-4v0chcK-JHLwiieY5LEhq1mcGT373jrDMHqqjs1qCe3dYE2E/s308/D1B895EF-37C8-44C0-BA21-818DD0DC30A1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="200" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOdVekUx8tMmEa9sKnTtQZrpxbK_7xNvmkO3UM9t5caiWR2yBaawMdtJUxMslfPlL9LmaCxyUL01NXjrgwSbGggbqAqj81LBaSKQrIePbZ6lAHiSSsEtXsfC2RMBgqzsLxomcDzrb-4v0chcK-JHLwiieY5LEhq1mcGT373jrDMHqqjs1qCe3dYE2E/s1600/D1B895EF-37C8-44C0-BA21-818DD0DC30A1.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because I Loved You </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Donnaldson Brown is a unique, character-driven saga that readers will love. I adore books by authors who are so in love with their characters that they allow them to make mistakes, fail miserably, love wildly, and suffer the consequences. In 1972, sixteen-year-old aspiring artist Leni O’Hare’s French war bride mother tries to sell Leni’s beloved horse and her cherished older brother dies at football practice leaving her bereft and vulnerable. Leni falls for her brother’s friend, the math and physics genius Caleb McGrath, the son of a wealthy rancher who can't understand Caleb’s desire to go to college. Both Caleb and Leni are products of the remote East Texas landscape where they live and they both care more about horses than people until they find each other. Caleb’s bad-boy older brother Hank helps Leni when she feels that she must leave town and disappear so Caleb will accept a scholarship at Princeton without her holding him back. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Caleb and Leni meet by chance in the 1980s in New York City where Leni engages in the guerilla art scene and Caleb manages finances for a real estate investment firm and is engaged. Despite their circumstances, they fall in love again until Leni’s fears intervene. Their final meeting comes in 2016 when their earlier mistakes no longer matter and a revealed secret offers hope.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That Brown was once a screenwriter shows in her cinematic word pictures that create vistas allowing the reader to see and feel the remote Texas land and its “pink sunset, stretched thin like taffy across the entire sky.” Brown doesn't simply describe Leni, Caleb, and their families; she produces them out of thin air and the reader sees them as if they were on the big screen. If you love the way Kent Haruf, Leif Enger, and Larry Watson evoke family, small towns, place, and nature, you’re sure to enjoy </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because I Loved You.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up: Read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because I Loved You</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for its wonderful, flawed characters, and for its evocation of East Texas that makes you certain you’ve been there. Enjoy the bonus of Brown’s descriptions of Caleb and Leni’s horses and their importance in their lives. Devour it to experience their passionate romance. Select </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because I Loved You </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for your book club because you'll want to talk with others about how hard it can be for damaged souls to risk loving fully and about the importance of becoming who you're meant to be.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 5 Stars </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: April 4, 2023</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Pigeon Pie (Historical Fiction), Book Club</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://www.donnaldsonbrown.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.donnaldsonbrown.com/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Podcast Interview with the Author: </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/504991626/a-novel-idea" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.npr.org/podcasts/504991626/a-novel-idea</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read an Excerpt: </span><a href="https://bloomsite.wordpress.com/2022/11/01/an-excerpt-from-donnaldson-browns-debut-novel-because-i-loved-you/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://bloomsite.wordpress.com/2022/11/01/an-excerpt-from-donnaldson-browns-debut-novel-because-i-loved-you/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/donnaldson-brown/because-i-loved-you/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/donnaldson-brown/because-i-loved-you/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Cal and Leni first fall in love with horses, then with each other, a love that not even Donnaldson Brown’s beautifully rendered East Texas landscapes can contain. Because they’ve other loves, too, mathematics for Cal, art for Leni, which conflict with the expectations of their families and their town. There are other secrets, too, one of them buried so deep under their family trees that perhaps it should remain, but it can’t, not if Leni is to be free. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because I Loved You</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is deeply affecting, swooningly romantic, hard as diamonds, too: dreams don’t always add up, and trouble can sometimes be our friend.” </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> —Bill Roorbach, author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucky Turtle, Life Among Giants, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Remedy for Love </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Equal parts Kent Haruf and Elizabeth Wetmore, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because I Loved You </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> embodies all of the expansiveness and intimacy of a contemporary Western page-turner, and more. Starting in a small town in East Texas and traveling to the East Coast, this vivid, riveting narrative will transport you and break your heart at same time. Readers will love Donnaldson Brown’s stunning debut.”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> —S. Kirk Walsh, author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Elephant of Belfast </span></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-31645700020109986802023-03-14T08:59:00.003-05:002023-04-08T07:00:11.775-05:00Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b737caef-7fff-6d15-d031-87561c77bdb7" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsUOl0RHq1brLYdAmtc9HARmOCweqF7cE1oZdHeh1gR-ydcRtJ5GFoP5pKkM7MXMr45xa_PDTJidSbGQmraM1ywKPoKSyt3EMotAReLNnRIvrFieJB_-Hjx2XCbwtIcNYZ6IhE3tfsKpuZZ0eAunlwysVwY9eRuyXMwyzDvn0kK4szM2s1oWH3SdwG/s450/3F0220B5-7038-40BC-9EA0-CF057225B0FA.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="298" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsUOl0RHq1brLYdAmtc9HARmOCweqF7cE1oZdHeh1gR-ydcRtJ5GFoP5pKkM7MXMr45xa_PDTJidSbGQmraM1ywKPoKSyt3EMotAReLNnRIvrFieJB_-Hjx2XCbwtIcNYZ6IhE3tfsKpuZZ0eAunlwysVwY9eRuyXMwyzDvn0kK4szM2s1oWH3SdwG/s320/3F0220B5-7038-40BC-9EA0-CF057225B0FA.jpeg" width="212" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b737caef-7fff-6d15-d031-87561c77bdb7" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello Beautiful </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Ann Napolitano is a remarkable ode to the power inherent in the belief that everyone deserves love. The novel cleverly references </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Little Women </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as four of the main characters are sisters similar to the March siblings. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello Beautiful</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> never forces connections to the classic tale but instead intertwines them seamlessly. Most of the action takes place over a few decades beginning in 1978 in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood with its blend of Mexican and Italian communities and on the Northwestern University campus in Evanston. Napolitano captures the old Lozano Library, murals, taverns, and parks that make Pilsen unique. Her attention to detail also contributes to strong portraits of each of the four sisters, their parents, and their brother-in-law William who are well-delineated characters whose actions realistically support the ingenious plot. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Julia, the eldest sister, is a Northwestern student and a careful planner who’s mapped every detail of her life. When she meets William, a basketball player who’s studying history, she guides him toward becoming a history professor and doesn’t realize how much he loves basketball when a knee injury keeps him from playing. William, whose three-year-old sister died when he was only a few days old, has never felt deserving of love because his parents’ grief left them incapable of showing him affection. When he joins Julia’s large, expressive Italian family, he’s enveloped in their inclusiveness and total involvement in each other. Julia orchestrates their actions including her pregnancy shortly after they marry. When their daughter arrives, William falls into a deep depression and they divorce when he fears he will ruin his daughter’s life. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I refuse to spoil this beautiful story by giving away the surprising twists that occur in each of the sisters’ and William’s lives and in their learning to find ways to accept that they are worthy of being loved and of loving others after Julia and William divorce. In addition to Julia, each of her sisters is unique. I was so invested in them that I found myself crying happy tears when each character found ways of connection and acceptance along with tears of sadness when circumstances interfered. Napolitano also built remarkable minor characters that I adored. William and Julia’s daughter Alice, a precocious child, had me on tenterhooks with worry because she was so well portrayed and I was invested in her future. My favorite character is William’s former teammate Kent who nurtures him and helps him find self-worth in a career he loves. The way Kent enables William to find himself and love again is both poignant and strong. Supportive male friendships that aren’t caricatures are seldom seen in novels today making their relationship one to celebrate.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Each character in this novel is real to me so I was tempted to drive to Pilsen to walk the streets, enter the parks, and stare at the murals because I was certain I’d see members of the Padavano family there. This is a novel filled with beauty and sadness because that’s real life and it’s made even more real because of its setting.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Napolitano’s 2020 novel </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dear William </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">captured me with its caring rendering of the life of a boy who was the only survivor of a plane accident. It also showed how we can become whole by loving one another. In </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello Beautiful, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Napolitano outdoes herself with a cast of characters that teaches us that life is hard, but we can endure. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up: Read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello Beautiful </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for a big-hearted family saga that will envelop you completely as you enter Chicago’s Pilsen community and become a part of the Padavano family. Select this for your book club as these characters will remain with you and you’ll want to talk about them with friends. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For Chicagoans, this is a must-read with the neighborhood settings and even a brief visit to the glory days of the Chicago Bulls.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 5 Stars </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: March 14, 2023</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Book Club</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://annnapolitano.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://annnapolitano.com/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ann-napolitano/hello-beautiful/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ann-napolitano/hello-beautiful/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times: </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/11/books/review/hello-beautiful-ann-napolitano.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/11/books/review/hello-beautiful-ann-napolitano.html</a> </p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publishers Weekly: </span><a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/9780593243732" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.publishersweekly.com/9780593243732</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This sumptuous family saga is one of those rare novels whose singular characters are so beautifully rendered, it’s as if they’re your best friends, and you’re grateful to be in their orbit. Napolitano’s homage to Little Women, albeit set in late-20th century Chicago, will prompt you to slow down as you read, never wanting the book to end. When it does, prepare for tears.”—Oprah Quarterly</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sweeping . . . With the vibrant and close-knit Pilson neighborhood playing a supporting role, Napolitano’s latest novel investigates the deep, maddeningly frustrating, and ever-present love of family, whether tied by genetics or by choice.”—Booklist, starred review</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This is a richly woven story about family, but it’s also a unique take on Little Women. There are no heroes or villains here, only people—flawed and loving and striving like the rest of us. ‘Generosity’ is the word that comes to mind when I reflect on this gorgeous novel.”—Allegra Goodman, New York Times bestselling author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Cookbook Collector </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Sam</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Hello Beautiful is the work of a great author at the height of her powers. Equally immersive, emotional, and brilliantly crafted, this is an early contender for best novel of the year.”—J. Ryan Stradal, New York Times bestselling author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kitchens of the Great Midwest </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lager Queen of Minnesota</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p> </p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-28894000987163539382023-03-13T09:20:00.001-05:002023-03-13T09:21:10.343-05:00Künstlers in Paradise by Cathleen Schine<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPCjGrkDsXE50IIsNB10-s1amGlPNKCg_s_uW3FXHU0VHkSUcNZ67ZBegJlsacxTUox-wHPKN4nl7AHOzphA7hOwKc60kQ_ORP6NYWmh7lJ6QHzIjdzsw9_qIQ463kON_cGlJPZIBIrItlEVtejbEagMD8EKX3oe2Rv1G1hVuzvxAq6aa1_NAby-E/s912/8BE067EA-914B-4735-95AA-AFE567712830.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="912" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPCjGrkDsXE50IIsNB10-s1amGlPNKCg_s_uW3FXHU0VHkSUcNZ67ZBegJlsacxTUox-wHPKN4nl7AHOzphA7hOwKc60kQ_ORP6NYWmh7lJ6QHzIjdzsw9_qIQ463kON_cGlJPZIBIrItlEVtejbEagMD8EKX3oe2Rv1G1hVuzvxAq6aa1_NAby-E/s320/8BE067EA-914B-4735-95AA-AFE567712830.jpeg" width="211" /></a></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Künstlers in Paradise </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Cathleen Schine </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a spectacular novel. It’s a charming and important recollection of 1940s Southern California and the lives of the Jewish families who moved there to escape Germany and Austria before World War II coupled with a compelling, poignant, and droll tale of life in quarantine in the early days of Covid in Los Angeles. Julian Künstler, a 23-year-old aspiring writer and sporadic student of varying subjects, loses his part-time job, his girlfriend, and his roommate in early 2020. His parents won’t give him money to keep his NYC apartment so when Mamie, his 93-year-old grandmother, breaks her wrist, his parents think: “removing their son from the disarray of his life and depositing him into Mamie’s disarray—the perfect solution. He heads to Venice, California where Mamie lives in a 1920s bungalow with Agatha, her cook and companion, a woman she refers to as her “dogsbody.”</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While Julian settles in, Mamie begins to share stories of her life beginning in 1939 in Vienna when she was eleven and her accomplished Jewish family including her screenwriter mother, her pianist father, and her grandfather fled the Nazis. Schine cleverly uses language that illuminates the Künstler family as Mamie describes her uncle to Julian: “Uncle Gustav was yelling . . . in Yiddish! The forbidden, vulgar language of the shtetl, of the Jewish slums.” . . . “We never spoke what we Viennese considered a mongrel language, the speech of the poor, of Eastern European Jews, unenlightened, practically medieval.” </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Künstler snobbery,” Julian said, nodding.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Mamie continues weaving her tales, Covid arrives so the unlikely trio quarantines together and Julian’s presence becomes essential. As they share meals and cocktail hours in the garden, Julian’s parents remain in New York. Schine seamlessly explores the similarity between the Jewish exile in the paradise of 1940 Los Angeles and the lush garden paradise of California in 2020 when so many in New York City were dying of Covid. Mamie’s ruminations on her family’s arrival in Los Angeles before the war felt similar to the feelings of so many in 2020: “No one was happy here at first, Mamie thought. But neither were we dead.” </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mamie is a magnificent character described by Julian’s mother as “exotic and quixotic.” “Neurotic, his father would add.” She was an accomplished violinist who'd traveled the world performing. At 93, her hair was orange-red, Julian “thought it was because she had planted herself in her new world and was determined that people see her there. Her hair was celebratory: she had survived.” Her remembrances are as colorful as her hair especially as she tells of her close relationships with Greta Garbo and composer Arnold Schoenberg and of her family’s friendships with Aldous Huxley, Anita Loos, Christopher Isherwood and others. Julian asks, “You met Charlie Chaplain? Really?” “A nodding acquaintance,” states Mamie. Those encounters make the reader feel as if they were guests at he parties that only occurred in late afternoons because the German and Austria émigrés had to abide by a wartime curfew at 8 p.m. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Julian takes careful notes of Mamie’s memories to use in his screenplay, Exiles in Space, as his grandmother describes her past and he becomes closer to her and grows in empathy while beginning to feel that he has a purpose. As the novel begins, he isn't as exciting a character as his grandmother or as humorous a one as is the stalwart Agatha with her ever-present pocketbook and its can of Mace. Instead, the reader gets to watch his growth as he becomes more comfortable with himself.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up: Read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Künstlers in Paradise </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to experience five generations of a family from their roots in a fairy-tale life in early twentieth-century Vienna to survivor guilt in sunny California, followed by assimilation in 21st-century New York City. Sit in the lush garden listening as Mamie shares her memories with her grandson Julian. Experience the power of story to connect us and help us find ourselves as you revel in Mamie’s witty wordplay and wisdom as in these sentences: “I do not believe in life after death,” Mamie said. “I sometimes have trouble believing in life before death; it is all so improbable.” Buy this book and embed yourself in Maggie, Agatha, and Julian’s beautiful, improbable world. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A personal note: I wish my mother were alive to read this novel. She loved reading about the period before World War II and appreciated clever banter and exquisite sentences. In 1939 at age seventeen, she spent two months in England and France with her aunt and uncle. She told me stories about her trip and I have both the journal she kept and the passenger list from her return on the S. S. Normandie in June, 1939. Seeing names like Rosenfeld, Rosenberg, Schoeneman, Schulz, and Yaffe listed alongside American citizens including Avery Brundage and actor Ray Milland and European princes, princesses, barons, and baronesses make Shine’s story and research even more real for me. I particularly related to the stories about actors as Mom’s journal and subsequent conversations showed how enamored she was with seeing and talking with Ray Milland.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYyy4A-7iVH4OfAT8tK_sren4PrQpkotfEuA_l75tPodzxMjUv7SsL-tYvT2NmCzjTQhrFp-BHE6ZcAkUlVYoldRdCDgQqGdXrvW9ZzKIktaKy_ULGGD4ZfWDR0J-ogP_M_ArP9NjQoceMw_fr94RPo2KEbGsP3RqAM-_j3IrvLDciWS57xMk0DI2i/s2760/13EF0E1D-DBEA-4A73-80B2-08175E569A48.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2760" data-original-width="1684" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYyy4A-7iVH4OfAT8tK_sren4PrQpkotfEuA_l75tPodzxMjUv7SsL-tYvT2NmCzjTQhrFp-BHE6ZcAkUlVYoldRdCDgQqGdXrvW9ZzKIktaKy_ULGGD4ZfWDR0J-ogP_M_ArP9NjQoceMw_fr94RPo2KEbGsP3RqAM-_j3IrvLDciWS57xMk0DI2i/s320/13EF0E1D-DBEA-4A73-80B2-08175E569A48.jpeg" width="195" /></a></div><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 5 Stars </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: February 14, 2023</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Dessert, Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Pigeon Pie (Historical Fiction), Super Nutrition, Book Club</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://cathleenschine.me/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://cathleenschine.me/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Interview with the Author: </span><a href="https://cathleenschine.me/knstlers-in-paradise-qa" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://cathleenschine.me/knstlers-in-paradise-qa</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Watch this: </span><a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-seen-on/bills-books/bills-books-two-novels-and-a-festival-honoring-a-great-american-author/4148595/">https://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-seen-on/bills-books/bills-books-two-novels-and-a-festival-honoring-a-great-american-author/4148595/</a></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jewish Book Council: </span><a href="https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/kunstlers-in-paradise" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/kunstlers-in-paradise</span></a></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cathleen-schine/kunstlers-in-paradise/" style="text-decoration: none;">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cathleen-schine/kunstlers-in-paradise/</a></span><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><span style="font-family: arial;">Los Angeles Times: </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2023-03-10/l-a-transplant-novelist-cathleen-schines-love-letter-to-its-refugee-generations">https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2023-03-10/l-a-transplant-novelist-cathleen-schines-love-letter-to-its-refugee-generations</a><div><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publishers Weekly: </span><a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781250805904" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781250805904</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dreamy, drifty, and droll, studded with lush botanical description and historical gems. Schine’s many fans will enjoy."</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Kirkus Reviews</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Reading like a cross between Leopoldstadt and Down and Out in Beverly Hills, this does the trick as an emotionally resonant meditation on family, memory, and the need for stories."</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Publishers Weekly</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Few authors could pull off what Cathleen Schine does in Künstlers in Paradise: creating a seamless, multilayered saga about family dynamics and relationships, immigration, the early days of Hollywood and the often disturbingly cyclical nature of history. . . . Künstlers in Paradise is truly a trove of unexpected rewards." </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—BookPage, Starred Review</span></p></div>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-68754166021050410302023-02-09T20:45:00.043-06:002023-02-10T07:17:28.698-06:00Love is in the Air<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSShEZzFYZNnv_PNngS2yefmlzVYcUx1djK4eweykjG6F7XKALJGzLeRnaZaK1-aw_UNx8mr52F5OnaxEY9vg6ttMNHAtRsF2_75bOAzq3eyGneckzgqdFyLLFiWkwGD__tceFlm9m2aVAJGB3__9h_KOG0UoEzsJByQv0q_9l4RfHLni0PyYaSC04/s1024/116D8A2B-36ED-4A3D-8373-0C96E3761787.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="828" data-original-width="1024" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSShEZzFYZNnv_PNngS2yefmlzVYcUx1djK4eweykjG6F7XKALJGzLeRnaZaK1-aw_UNx8mr52F5OnaxEY9vg6ttMNHAtRsF2_75bOAzq3eyGneckzgqdFyLLFiWkwGD__tceFlm9m2aVAJGB3__9h_KOG0UoEzsJByQv0q_9l4RfHLni0PyYaSC04/s320/116D8A2B-36ED-4A3D-8373-0C96E3761787.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Valentine’s Day approaches, my thoughts turn to books celebrating, exploring, and envisioning love. We who live in northern regions also celebrate Valentine’s Day as a time when spring’s promise seems close yet the reality of cold days beckons us to stay inside with a cup of tea and a book. Treat yourself or someone you love to one of these books this February.</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwhGP5yVkK27E-kSndGTf7UDsB7gLPsnEOfrVW7oTCqVcLGhptnJThi5jA5PE3K2NHwvfcAilaDENHPuPNF0MO0DoDvCC9uvRn3oSGjuxh_kdkgHrpgl12RSZ1tbOzD6RkWy7iir63ItORKx4_Noc6J6m9Y9fyLhYoRN0lAT9NupI6SCNeFcij1k17/s346/2CBD2EDB-3BAF-42E8-82F1-2BA6461D1A54.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="230" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwhGP5yVkK27E-kSndGTf7UDsB7gLPsnEOfrVW7oTCqVcLGhptnJThi5jA5PE3K2NHwvfcAilaDENHPuPNF0MO0DoDvCC9uvRn3oSGjuxh_kdkgHrpgl12RSZ1tbOzD6RkWy7iir63ItORKx4_Noc6J6m9Y9fyLhYoRN0lAT9NupI6SCNeFcij1k17/w133-h200/2CBD2EDB-3BAF-42E8-82F1-2BA6461D1A54.jpeg" width="133" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>+<i>500 Miles from You</i></b></span> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Jenny Colgan</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> begins as Lissa, a nurse, visits patients in a distressed London neighborhood and witnesses a hit and run, the seemingly deliberate running down of a teen she knows. When she experiences PTSD, her supervisor asks her to swap jobs with a nurse in an isolated town in the Scottish Highlands for three months thinking it will be healing. Cormac, the nurse/paramedic she switches with, isn’t keen on the bustle of London but is ready for a change. The two email daily reporting on their patients and soon make a connection. I wanted an additional 100 pages so their meeting could have been fleshed out to have the depth and impact of the rest of the book, but I still loved it. I don’t cry often, but the hit and run and aftermath were so expertly written, they captured me and I shed many tears. A lovely escape with the bonus of the sensitive handling of depression and of organ transplants. Everyone needs a true romance for Valentine's Day. D/GPR/SBP/SF, BC (2020)</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+The Light Pirate </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Lily Brooks-Dalton </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghwXIIKekUSs5yTdqwhexXvaopSYGkPaoFWonicOFehbDMuUmY0PS5o-2rVP_h83J4X8bH6KXVzUVkYLjXcCL8s6q5LQLsz0MX2YmMXPUYCv96LQoZI46jExkVTflZos_6Z-4Qa_qzXIrvyN4dSkai4FnWldIaoEexLfyj2zmHZDiNavtXSWECYTdq/s346/2998E3C3-B2C1-4D92-A5E2-B8B55905E277.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="229" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghwXIIKekUSs5yTdqwhexXvaopSYGkPaoFWonicOFehbDMuUmY0PS5o-2rVP_h83J4X8bH6KXVzUVkYLjXcCL8s6q5LQLsz0MX2YmMXPUYCv96LQoZI46jExkVTflZos_6Z-4Qa_qzXIrvyN4dSkai4FnWldIaoEexLfyj2zmHZDiNavtXSWECYTdq/w133-h200/2998E3C3-B2C1-4D92-A5E2-B8B55905E277.jpeg" width="133" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">portrays the dying state of Florida as frequent hurricanes and rising water levels threaten. As the latest storm approaches, Kirby’s boys disappear. While he searches for them, his wife Frida gives birth to baby Wanda alone. The novel follows Wanda through decades of losses that mirror her abandoned town and state. The four parts: power, water, light, and time offer an enlightening, yet bleak, view of climate change and the future while exploring engaging, multi-dimensional characters filled with hope along with a touch of magic realism. The book shows how difficult it can be to trust enough to love after suffering so much loss. Yet, love always wins. GPR/SN, BC (2022)</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsgIh0Aa80xsOHtWyJS4g3CYPYX3g5E26fHmMu0DkcpKibUXyOnZfhWYF8SOZqOZHTcA8-dsg5A4aHPrmi6AG5lYEuHYI1JR0Edpppi0a4l58ZmH072hxsIyRc1d_5TOuEov9o8fmebeqhqmOBIgEESdhM_vrzP_Z49M9oMq-NhvVgD0OKQFRaExUD/s346/E2E9E09D-102B-49C5-A7EB-573C666E412D.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="233" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsgIh0Aa80xsOHtWyJS4g3CYPYX3g5E26fHmMu0DkcpKibUXyOnZfhWYF8SOZqOZHTcA8-dsg5A4aHPrmi6AG5lYEuHYI1JR0Edpppi0a4l58ZmH072hxsIyRc1d_5TOuEov9o8fmebeqhqmOBIgEESdhM_vrzP_Z49M9oMq-NhvVgD0OKQFRaExUD/w134-h200/E2E9E09D-102B-49C5-A7EB-573C666E412D.jpeg" width="134" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>+Love & Saffron</i></b></span> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Kim Fay </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was on my 2022 list but must be revisited for this holiday. Set in the 1960s, this charmingly poignant, delightful epistolary novel blends friendship, food, and life. When Joan sends Imogen a fan letter regarding her “Letter from the Island” column along with a packet of saffron from a trip to the “Far East,” a correspondence blossoms with shared recipes, advice, and kindness that will melt even the hardest heart. Taking risks in friendship and love makes for one fine escape of a novel you’ll devour in a day. One sentence seems meant for today: “The less we cement ourselves to our certainties, the fuller our lives can be.” Taking a chance on love is just what readers need in February. D/GPR/PP, BC (2022)</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Maureen </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Rachel Joyce </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifyle4VUsmDwA06ibkVT5x5BCQZ-YBDdoIdrlyEKUjSLaAlLcPnYzq44eyiLQevtZx1mowjbYBWDzDXAn8Lmlcf6qM97d7YuCVer94t3LbzeVuXEzqoEkOvOJECU8YDJ0vJSZg_9JnG81cZ2jcGCSJC_3vtm0lW-aCZMXwtSHivceidqKXF0Ac20C_/s499/55A4AB4A-410F-47F5-8314-B1CB91ECB1D3.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="324" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifyle4VUsmDwA06ibkVT5x5BCQZ-YBDdoIdrlyEKUjSLaAlLcPnYzq44eyiLQevtZx1mowjbYBWDzDXAn8Lmlcf6qM97d7YuCVer94t3LbzeVuXEzqoEkOvOJECU8YDJ0vJSZg_9JnG81cZ2jcGCSJC_3vtm0lW-aCZMXwtSHivceidqKXF0Ac20C_/w130-h200/55A4AB4A-410F-47F5-8314-B1CB91ECB1D3.jpeg" width="130" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maureen is the third book in the Harold Fry series following the phenomenal </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the poignant </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Originally titled </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in Britain, this 192-page novel completes the saga with Maureen’s journey to Queenie’s garden where she learns that there’s a tribute to her son. She’s not sure about visiting but feels she must. Along the way, she encounters difficulties and unexpected help and compassion. This is a solid reflection on forgiveness and love. It starts slowly until Maureen and the story find their way and love begins to overpower grief. GPR/SBP/SF, BC (2023)</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO5LiQjx28gJcIIkr08Pbje-L2kO7ODh5KleUhLraHunZWRpmXPhQtDmkdVroAaC3YFhxRliSuiYy304oslWCvN4TjAk5HgnJRxonXvUIqZ4k4kvEAmWLViFkq4dFxlecadqlF5UCiqFOyZWQg7htpRXMnvuC9QH6wZwYB8T7e6ojPOj4LEJiKiObM/s1000/1CF52D85-A6C9-4CB2-9BF6-C1715BCB7C17.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="662" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO5LiQjx28gJcIIkr08Pbje-L2kO7ODh5KleUhLraHunZWRpmXPhQtDmkdVroAaC3YFhxRliSuiYy304oslWCvN4TjAk5HgnJRxonXvUIqZ4k4kvEAmWLViFkq4dFxlecadqlF5UCiqFOyZWQg7htpRXMnvuC9QH6wZwYB8T7e6ojPOj4LEJiKiObM/w133-h200/1CF52D85-A6C9-4CB2-9BF6-C1715BCB7C17.jpeg" width="133" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>+The Measure</i></b></span> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Nikki Erlick, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One morning, every adult on earth receives an indestructible wooden box inscribed “The measure of your life lies within.” The boxes each contain a string indicating the amount of time the recipient has left to live. Almost immediately, the world changes, with short stringers experiencing discrimination and eight main characters each taking a different approach to the strings they’ve been dealt. The premise is unique and the novel forms a parable filled with love and grieving that offers hope and insight. This one is certain to be a book club hit. GPR/S/SF, BC (2022)</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+The Music of Bees </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Eileen Garvin </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL7snRdb54yx_Wuxbim7JjBTMVHfzB0IpI1fLX2nwJPzLI6NhUU6sstbhPlVjZNkWgj5AqSevvtHZog0NqQW01QtW18945eW90qs_4ueEbTX8oepZut9SYCqbrRB9XngtGdPD_-zYdXlQxGv0i-o342KO0OIOgGi8mpcnw5yWydsjAHUVKZCiTLJGf/s346/C15C5763-C682-48D0-8AFF-1C11A6C581D1.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="230" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL7snRdb54yx_Wuxbim7JjBTMVHfzB0IpI1fLX2nwJPzLI6NhUU6sstbhPlVjZNkWgj5AqSevvtHZog0NqQW01QtW18945eW90qs_4ueEbTX8oepZut9SYCqbrRB9XngtGdPD_-zYdXlQxGv0i-o342KO0OIOgGi8mpcnw5yWydsjAHUVKZCiTLJGf/w133-h200/C15C5763-C682-48D0-8AFF-1C11A6C581D1.jpeg" width="133" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alice lives alone on land that was home to her family's apple orchard. She works for the county and anticipates a promotion, but when it doesn’t come, she quits her job to concentrate on raising bees and fighting a conglomerate moving to the area with chemicals that will kill her bees and destroy her community. After she almost runs over Jake, a teen in a wheelchair, on a deserted road, she takes him home and observes his father’s cruelty and offers the boy a temporary place to live in her home. He has an affinity for the bees and wants to work with them, but she needs someone able to do more than his disability allows. When 24-year-old Harry, recently out of prison, arrives to stay with his grandfather, his skills complement Jake’s so he moves into the barn and the unique trio supports each other. This debut celebrates familial love, healing, and growth. The gentle novel cleverly teaches the reader about beekeeping and bees while exploring the theme of community in hives and in life. GPR/SN, BC (2022)</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDYq4xUUbA-vXURqDUmkUBd5QivGdqShFx6hF3WIOQu-Ft5k32pkFS3ZLwRhaYDHnrAXr1vWByD43aa63y6kxrf55Dl-IS3OEbteFG3wJZ1B2Q3rRl6NIc5CqEYfK82QHDM8_NRedu48d6ShzvdDOn9opTKX-0Yd3gKHIa6adGWrqoZBNqJKS1Yhm5/s346/92224AA2-58FE-484F-B000-0AEED23A131E.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="228" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDYq4xUUbA-vXURqDUmkUBd5QivGdqShFx6hF3WIOQu-Ft5k32pkFS3ZLwRhaYDHnrAXr1vWByD43aa63y6kxrf55Dl-IS3OEbteFG3wJZ1B2Q3rRl6NIc5CqEYfK82QHDM8_NRedu48d6ShzvdDOn9opTKX-0Yd3gKHIa6adGWrqoZBNqJKS1Yhm5/w132-h200/92224AA2-58FE-484F-B000-0AEED23A131E.jpeg" width="132" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>*Signal Fires</i></b></span> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Dani Shapiro, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s 1985 and 15-year-old Theo Wilf is driving the car because his older sister Sarah has been drinking. They crash in front of their home and Misty Zimmerman, their passenger, dies. Sarah claims that she was the driver and no one checks her for alcohol as her father, a doctor, runs out and tries to save Misty but may inadvertently contribute to her death. An omniscient narrator takes the reader ahead in time as the secrets of that day affect the family. Later, on the New Year’s Eve before 2000, Dr. Wilf again leaves his house to deliver and save the life of the premature baby being born to new neighbors across the street. He forms a relationship with Waldo, the child, who shows the doctor an app that charts constellations and forms a significant part of Waldo’s life. The app highlights the interconnectedness theme as it details “stars. . . signal fires in the dark, mysterious fellow travelers lighting a path.” That interconnectedness, outstanding character development, and Shapiro’s incredible word pictures lead to a beautiful climax celebrating love and life. This is a brilliant novel. G (2022)</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+A Winter Grave </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Peter May </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga5RtjNtBYXAbWqSun36pPs7IHlr3e_dMdccinucESv2ENV1sf9Cbd-BRv2FzZOOoOWWtGNXLwC99oHecuFNYN3H8WYX_2pzSCtAIclFqegkDszHA49ZD1YHL2pTM9cJnX5_zlV5R5ni4WM7RGjlepuvVY7vcNHbgHjhK9gb3KbCnEQXoiRiBs70Hf/s436/9DA57FC5-88E0-491B-97D4-27A0610E6A7C.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="283" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga5RtjNtBYXAbWqSun36pPs7IHlr3e_dMdccinucESv2ENV1sf9Cbd-BRv2FzZOOoOWWtGNXLwC99oHecuFNYN3H8WYX_2pzSCtAIclFqegkDszHA49ZD1YHL2pTM9cJnX5_zlV5R5ni4WM7RGjlepuvVY7vcNHbgHjhK9gb3KbCnEQXoiRiBs70Hf/w130-h200/9DA57FC5-88E0-491B-97D4-27A0610E6A7C.jpeg" width="130" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a stand-alone mystery from the award-winning author of one of my favorites, the Lewis trilogy of mysteries. It’s 2051, and much of the earth is too hot to inhabit while the melting Gulf Stream has hit Scotland with rare snow and ice storms. In the northern Highlands, Addie, a meteorologist, discovers the body of a missing investigative reporter encased in ice at a weather station, she’s monitoring. Cameron Brodie, a Glasgow detective just diagnosed with a terminal disease, volunteers to investigate hoping to reconnect with his estranged daughter who lives in the village. He and a pathologist encounter evidence of murder as a storm cuts them off from the rest of the world and they can’t trust anyone in the village. When people start dying and there seems to be no safe route out, Brode must come up with a way to outsmart the bad guys. What’s love got to do with it? Everything! Love keeps a father from revealing facts that could hurt and love enables the good guys to do more than seems possible to save the world. (2023)</span><p></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-7187681885900139042023-01-13T15:06:00.004-06:002023-01-14T08:52:59.211-06:00The Best Books of 2022<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-392f3f54-7fff-9892-33c5-a6e7e5d4ce3f" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLLy251fLmXBDMrrFRYE7ArsBd3N4pQrJLA8K0nBW9r4PWH3-969WI9WMlUgbeqM8FcrhjEo9XU3mUQkQZkryvuGebW6dGbX2HinjHh7ZrkcPzVmigmMOtK1PrpOiFBrBhN-XSsXNQATiG0Hv8pi1CR_1_TXjDWUy-BVi3Ecg6AxTHmZEPoJaGYvTm/s794/85431847-64AB-417B-AFC5-80EAFA0B37BC.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="635" data-original-width="794" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLLy251fLmXBDMrrFRYE7ArsBd3N4pQrJLA8K0nBW9r4PWH3-969WI9WMlUgbeqM8FcrhjEo9XU3mUQkQZkryvuGebW6dGbX2HinjHh7ZrkcPzVmigmMOtK1PrpOiFBrBhN-XSsXNQATiG0Hv8pi1CR_1_TXjDWUy-BVi3Ecg6AxTHmZEPoJaGYvTm/s320/85431847-64AB-417B-AFC5-80EAFA0B37BC.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-392f3f54-7fff-9892-33c5-a6e7e5d4ce3f" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m testing the adage “Better Late than Never” with this listing of the Best Books of 2022 coming in mid January rather than in the last week of 2022. Since there’s never a bad time for a good book, I hope these titles find you when you’re hungry for a good book. The illustration atop this post is part of a series I love called “Ideal Bookshelf” by Jane Mount. This one titled “Banned Books” seems especially appropriate this year as book banning increased in schools and libraries across the U.S. Mount’s prints are available at </span><a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/janemount" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.etsy.com/shop/janemount</span></a></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All of the books listed below are also listed on my <a href="http://hungryforgoodbooks.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-annual-list2022-edition.html">Annual List</a> with complete descriptions of each title.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Best Fiction of 2022:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Geographies of the Heart </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Caitlin Hamilton Summie </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was the best novel I read in 2022 that was published in 2022.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Small Things Like These </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Claire Keegan </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was the best novel I read in 2022 that was published in 2021.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Runners-Up for Best Fiction:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Demon Copperhead </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Barbara Kingsolver</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lark Ascending </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Silas House</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lessons in Chemistry </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Bonnie Garmus </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucy by the Sea </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Elizabeth Strout</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recitatif </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Toni Morrison </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(1983, new release with introduction by Zadie Smith 2022)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Swimmers </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Julie Otsuka </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Winners </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Fredrik Backman</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Young Mungo </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Douglas Stuart</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Best Historical Fiction, also known as Pigeon Pie:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lessons in Chemistry </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Bonnie Garmus </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Runners-Up for Best Historical Fiction:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black Cake </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Charmaine Wilkerson</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clark and Division </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Naomi Hirahara </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cora’s Kitchen </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Kimberly Garrett Brown</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Final Revival of Opal and Ned </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Dawnie Walton</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Foundling </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Anne Leary</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take My Hand </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Dolen Perkins Valdez</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Two Lives of Sara </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Catherine Adel West</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Best Debut Novels of 2022:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Geographies of the Heart </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Caitlin Hamilton Summie</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lessons in Chemistry </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Bonnie Garmus </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Runners-Up for Best Debut Novels of 2022:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cora’s Kitchen </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Kimberly Garrett Brown</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Final Revival of Opal and Nev </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Dawnie Walton</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Groundskeeping </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Lee Cole</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rabbit Hutch </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Tess Gunty</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Remarkably Bright Creatures </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Shelby Van Pelt</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">School for Good Mothers </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Jessamine Chan</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Best Dessert, Happy, Pick-Me-Up Book of 2022:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mary Jane </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Jessica Anya Blau</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Runners-Up for Best Dessert, Happy, Pick-Me-Up Books of 2022:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Book Lovers </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Emily Henry</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Evvie Drake Starts Over </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Linda Holmes</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love & Saffron </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Kim Fay</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Remarkably Bright Creatures </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Shelby Van Pelt</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Best Mysteries, Suspense, and Thriller of 2022:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Violin Conspiracy </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Brendan Slocumb</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Runners-Up for Best Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers of 2022:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clark and Division </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Naomi Hirahara </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Last Thing He Told Me </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Laura Dave</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She Rides Shotgun </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Jordan Harper </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2017)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A World of Curiosities </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Louise Penny</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Best Nonfiction Book of 2022:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lost & Found </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Kathryn Schulz </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Runners-Up for Best Nonfiction Books of 2022:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beautiful Country </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Julie Qian Wang </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The River You Touch </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Chris Dombrowski </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Somebody’s Daughter </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Ashley Day </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Up North in Michigan </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Jerry Dennis </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Widowland </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Rachel Brougham </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p> </p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-60987108283214970392022-12-09T13:48:00.003-06:002022-12-09T16:20:14.596-06:00Books to Give Your Favorite Teen or Child<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-31b0b6b0-7fff-1efd-40f0-b8ae499de029" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnYhvHIQsxs3uNCRF0kVUMtoefZ454PakI8oyJYNcIIN5hYvtrvvBTtqcCIxvxuOXkYr_LXolb1OPTYwZawPPfw110t_0Gm9B31y8GgYetnLXde1_2no_51dE8S8vrbxw4PWAN4j3E9Lz-V4JXXhZn_rY66UGxys0a5vhqn4ehqo08DTqOQ0T7Gr9s/s259/A078B554-1BD0-49F7-866F-DB3B1A6A16A1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnYhvHIQsxs3uNCRF0kVUMtoefZ454PakI8oyJYNcIIN5hYvtrvvBTtqcCIxvxuOXkYr_LXolb1OPTYwZawPPfw110t_0Gm9B31y8GgYetnLXde1_2no_51dE8S8vrbxw4PWAN4j3E9Lz-V4JXXhZn_rY66UGxys0a5vhqn4ehqo08DTqOQ0T7Gr9s/s1600/A078B554-1BD0-49F7-866F-DB3B1A6A16A1.jpeg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-31b0b6b0-7fff-1efd-40f0-b8ae499de029" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s the time of year when I am asked to recommend book titles for children and teens. A bonus with these titles is that most of them are also wonderful reads for adults.</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-31b0b6b0-7fff-1efd-40f0-b8ae499de029" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-31b0b6b0-7fff-1efd-40f0-b8ae499de029" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>For Preschool through First Grade:</b></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-31b0b6b0-7fff-1efd-40f0-b8ae499de029" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-31b0b6b0-7fff-1efd-40f0-b8ae499de029" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKmd_Z_gXQ0n6yxqoE1dZZb0922xd3L8boV0S8uZcRCZHjTqvANQZUov1dkHlqJhygJZC6ghhX_VW4yQAydphyaoFJAe78_2hG6UCkIXbhbwsBWXtGLy16EWlfUGOPLNiWcMvYQvCPY26bKtkjTjmtSmKNpbsXsQr6f6N0kFbTpRqZlGBd_bXJIxV8/s236/B248EA76-D9A9-4945-A950-3C4FFA2611EA.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="214" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKmd_Z_gXQ0n6yxqoE1dZZb0922xd3L8boV0S8uZcRCZHjTqvANQZUov1dkHlqJhygJZC6ghhX_VW4yQAydphyaoFJAe78_2hG6UCkIXbhbwsBWXtGLy16EWlfUGOPLNiWcMvYQvCPY26bKtkjTjmtSmKNpbsXsQr6f6N0kFbTpRqZlGBd_bXJIxV8/w181-h200/B248EA76-D9A9-4945-A950-3C4FFA2611EA.png" width="181" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><i>Be Kind </i>by Pat Zietlow Miller </b>follows a child who doesn’t know how to help when a classmate spills grape juice on herself. Showing that giving and empathy can make a difference provides a way for kids to explore those topics. This award winner is a perfect classroom addition so it might be just the right gift for your favorite child’s classroom or just for the child. I haven’t found a kid who didn’t love it. PBJ Ages 3-6 (2018)</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>For Kids Ages 8-13:</b></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Odder </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Katherine Applegate </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a delightful tale about Odder, a playful, curious otter bitten by a shark.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDNktodn-ctB7HErdlasryXaBkIuCSCTYUtRkq1arSxPg0DNA_Fqc4_YIjt8rVegqUetjcQnrVPkcFd9lHolJ1XOn9ZJwh9xEL9MyM00SqnZvw6gcQK8v-tkSUQwB2qWw2ZZFJDlhlPizaeUP3spVx1V7vJejkrGBqXSdLHD5YiGe5mv3ioCOw8Pg1/s270/46C771F2-B40F-4BA7-818B-CD1EF5B0D7AC.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="187" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDNktodn-ctB7HErdlasryXaBkIuCSCTYUtRkq1arSxPg0DNA_Fqc4_YIjt8rVegqUetjcQnrVPkcFd9lHolJ1XOn9ZJwh9xEL9MyM00SqnZvw6gcQK8v-tkSUQwB2qWw2ZZFJDlhlPizaeUP3spVx1V7vJejkrGBqXSdLHD5YiGe5mv3ioCOw8Pg1/w139-h200/46C771F2-B40F-4BA7-818B-CD1EF5B0D7AC.png" width="139" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her story was inspired by a program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium that places orphaned pups with surrogate mothers who teach the pups to survive in the wild. The free verse language perfectly encapsulates the joy Odder feels when playing in water and the importance of saving otters. Newbery winner Applegate is a treasure. PBJ/SN Ages 8-12</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(If the child hasn’t yet read Applegate’s 2012 Newbery winner </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The One and Only Ivan, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">buy that as well even if they’ve seen the movie.)</span><p></p><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_akkv-K7Wu5mq81L5OzpinYEPBCCuueUT6WL18LvC4OaCosrZlEEtLscVqdTlzAgSrkZXuLci5KIWAlPZDntD2KcEqdusXW7rZmpmYDGsPZQ3mR1u0_h_rP8BttaIutmp970mcjzdaGSerRIopfQU589FDtCIeso7XAegZj8wdW31sNz0m08ZOAfN/s276/ACE2F325-8522-4560-9FDF-6A6D89C39445.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_akkv-K7Wu5mq81L5OzpinYEPBCCuueUT6WL18LvC4OaCosrZlEEtLscVqdTlzAgSrkZXuLci5KIWAlPZDntD2KcEqdusXW7rZmpmYDGsPZQ3mR1u0_h_rP8BttaIutmp970mcjzdaGSerRIopfQU589FDtCIeso7XAegZj8wdW31sNz0m08ZOAfN/w133-h200/ACE2F325-8522-4560-9FDF-6A6D89C39445.png" width="133" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Rover’s Story </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Jasmine Warga </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a sweet, comforting, clever, and informative story about Res, short for Resilience, a Mars rover, and the NASA scientists who built him. Res is truly resilient and he displays human emotions that make him care about Fly, the drone helicopter that accompanies him to Mars. This lovely, poignant tale offers both knowledge and a caring story. As always, Jasmine Warga writes just what kids need and want to read. She’s a treasure. Her </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Other Words for Home, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a 2019 Newbury Honor book, is one of my all-time favorites and would also be a great gift.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PBJ/SN Ages 8-13</span><div><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those Kids from Fawn Creek </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Erin Entrada Kelly</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is another delight from the great Newbery winner. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5oET7WeRae6CX652LWG6kcE2BsMVFCr6ao7Z3NYsXTG_mkVpgRofkAluKhDwKXubXetskques3C_RrNZp0a24kg5FtRv4aFd5VgrwPbyXT7ZxLjwoEWoDhz2OnPJO3ZApTd_hDCSJRPLeyjtR5rS7LDo9j-r-m9KZHePMv3UT6kzrhoi340PJ_R5L/s276/2B0C7A67-A554-4D55-91A8-E481598A41F1.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5oET7WeRae6CX652LWG6kcE2BsMVFCr6ao7Z3NYsXTG_mkVpgRofkAluKhDwKXubXetskques3C_RrNZp0a24kg5FtRv4aFd5VgrwPbyXT7ZxLjwoEWoDhz2OnPJO3ZApTd_hDCSJRPLeyjtR5rS7LDo9j-r-m9KZHePMv3UT6kzrhoi340PJ_R5L/w133-h200/2B0C7A67-A554-4D55-91A8-E481598A41F1.png" width="133" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are only twelve kids in the seventh grade at Fawn Creek and they’ve known each other all their lives. Nothing changes in their small Louisiana town until Orchid arrives. She’s lived in Paris and New York. What’s she doing in Fawn Creek? This novel exposes bullying and makes self-acceptance contagious. It’s perfect for that hard-to-buy-for tween category especially if they’ve read and enjoyed my favorite Kelly books, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello Universe </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You GoFirst</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You can’t go wrong with any of her titles. PBJ Ages 9-13</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.666666984558105px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>For Teens: </b></span></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiky2wxIRLL61DiMaqukuDg-BayRgbq6xtK_PSaTX01BcCSjegI8F57E40wziPPy2Vx5FH4FEe9wu97HJuycagWGH6kLCiKpVL0rYjIIu3xM8s9V7sy_at-ZAzFE-dvwxR3mg3gLlLMjSb0z5NqXtSuKtr1UOSpEHfQ8DJs9FKhuLa6Zn2xqeN8VaVl/s210/345266F5-8818-4C31-B40A-C8320297FB82.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="210" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiky2wxIRLL61DiMaqukuDg-BayRgbq6xtK_PSaTX01BcCSjegI8F57E40wziPPy2Vx5FH4FEe9wu97HJuycagWGH6kLCiKpVL0rYjIIu3xM8s9V7sy_at-ZAzFE-dvwxR3mg3gLlLMjSb0z5NqXtSuKtr1UOSpEHfQ8DJs9FKhuLa6Zn2xqeN8VaVl/w200-h200/345266F5-8818-4C31-B40A-C8320297FB82.png" width="200" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Robin Wall Kimmerer, adapted by Monique Gray Smith with illustrations by Nicole Neidhardt </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">takes the 2013 classic book of “indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teaching of plants” and mixes in questions for contemplation along with illustrations that make it real. It will speak to teens and tweens who want to save the planet and wonder where to start. The statements shown in green circles surrounded by sweetgrass braids offer great discussion starters. I was drawn to several of them including: “To be heard, you must speak the language of the one you want to listen” and “In some Native languages, the term for plants translates to ‘those who take care of us.’” My adult book club was so impressed with it that we’re reading and discussing it in January. </span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I Must Betray You </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Ruta Sepetys </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">brings 1989 Romania and the cruelty of the Ceaușescu regime to life.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY5vRQfb-66y3detvvQ5bldV0v7Zh6Fd79sJ1iWh46mUcE0voi4W1xFGz_2nHUBt5N71p6l7v8l0UIH8n3RKlW8kha2wbmchic5Mr_M7Abl6OTxKeFGBqjioY9so67G0AQwcWyESE6byr0CJQcUpoqNs2kbRUX4j1df-zQODPpflH4RoZm-YOyRAF5/s276/6C92836A-255E-444C-86FC-43E812D99A0E.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="182" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY5vRQfb-66y3detvvQ5bldV0v7Zh6Fd79sJ1iWh46mUcE0voi4W1xFGz_2nHUBt5N71p6l7v8l0UIH8n3RKlW8kha2wbmchic5Mr_M7Abl6OTxKeFGBqjioY9so67G0AQwcWyESE6byr0CJQcUpoqNs2kbRUX4j1df-zQODPpflH4RoZm-YOyRAF5/w132-h200/6C92836A-255E-444C-86FC-43E812D99A0E.png" width="132" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cristian is 17 and wants to be a writer but is forced to be an informant to save his family. Later he exposes the truth to the world and works for change with other youth. Brilliant! Sepetys’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Between Shades of Gray </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">has long been one of my favorites and it and this book are wonderful choices for adults and teens. DC/PP/SN Ages 13 and up. </span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2JTX3zaAopB4fRHGyLzrTUFLGjafDPKWzQwlKmKIrAIJuf5KHYmTFpMKuuL2oRp360s84hJrZ1gyNra4FRRKy-IQfKHXPGQqU9n9AwJymDVMZMhYpq3J0RSy7s9n3Rz0zAmaR9wdyVbu8WFGoOmcf5EXtATZ1JEd5wDhlDucNos7Ce6wS2ifLtS2r/s275/127C3EE8-98E0-46B4-9DF2-8CDD7E25EDB0.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2JTX3zaAopB4fRHGyLzrTUFLGjafDPKWzQwlKmKIrAIJuf5KHYmTFpMKuuL2oRp360s84hJrZ1gyNra4FRRKy-IQfKHXPGQqU9n9AwJymDVMZMhYpq3J0RSy7s9n3Rz0zAmaR9wdyVbu8WFGoOmcf5EXtATZ1JEd5wDhlDucNos7Ce6wS2ifLtS2r/w133-h200/127C3EE8-98E0-46B4-9DF2-8CDD7E25EDB0.png" width="133" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Passport </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Sophia Glock </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the true story of Sophia Glock’s transient childhood. Her parents were CIA officers and she went to high school in Central America where struggling to fit in was both unique to her situation and evocative of the universal teen experience. This graphic novel/memoir is gripping in its exploration of secrets, loyalty, and identity. DC/SN Ages 12 and up (2021)</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist for Justice </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijc5467B96JBEASrVVKiNbqSkh0qL8n0PSKSpkSz4b6xh96DYGQkYMOWIR1aZea4J2Zf_PdAuK9RRToo_Bd4zVARliPwLGoDnuTNVIUz1ju7RMFje2HzbeSNGAUZgBJz488FO2kscezdr4l7kutjGf6zx-u_aRwWW394R2x235SZ0r5kICShsi2lFE/s272/82991208-28CB-497D-9E59-FFA3B4B53FE5.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="272" data-original-width="185" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijc5467B96JBEASrVVKiNbqSkh0qL8n0PSKSpkSz4b6xh96DYGQkYMOWIR1aZea4J2Zf_PdAuK9RRToo_Bd4zVARliPwLGoDnuTNVIUz1ju7RMFje2HzbeSNGAUZgBJz488FO2kscezdr4l7kutjGf6zx-u_aRwWW394R2x235SZ0r5kICShsi2lFE/w136-h200/82991208-28CB-497D-9E59-FFA3B4B53FE5.png" width="136" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Tommie Smith and Derrick Barnes with illustrations by Dawud Anayabwile, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A finalist for the National Book Award for Young Adults, this inspiring graphic novel/memoir shares the resilient childhood of 1968 Olympic medalist Tommie Smith and his focus on ways to fight against racial injustice in the United States. When he raised his fist on the Olympic podium in Mexico City, everyone saw it. Now teens and adults can learn more about this proud, religious, courageous man and the need to stand up for justice. The powerful illustrations portray his strength and help readers see the inequalities of the 1960s. DC/SF/SN, BC Ages 12 and up</span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p> </p></div>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-14718746251512355732022-12-02T10:37:00.004-06:002023-01-13T14:17:33.097-06:00The Annual List—2022 Edition<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga9iWjv31Yskfa9Qa8Ve7T1FfFdI19GVEwM0DS4vIwbZfavoIkq9KWK8n8CGm4NbORIW0ipr43Q8nBiWrTFXUB8BRWZD6deqJrAq6NejPSY3yQDXjwAm2M3PfYrKoYmvHdEkf9sKz57zW5NtfQWsQAmn3y-4EXi-eghFGNl5UYfbrL29gltHG853Rh/s1024/F056E42E-7C0C-4753-A466-17FE2E995DD9.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga9iWjv31Yskfa9Qa8Ve7T1FfFdI19GVEwM0DS4vIwbZfavoIkq9KWK8n8CGm4NbORIW0ipr43Q8nBiWrTFXUB8BRWZD6deqJrAq6NejPSY3yQDXjwAm2M3PfYrKoYmvHdEkf9sKz57zW5NtfQWsQAmn3y-4EXi-eghFGNl5UYfbrL29gltHG853Rh/s320/F056E42E-7C0C-4753-A466-17FE2E995DD9.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Let the magic begin! Books teach us, nurture us, and calm us. They embed us in the past and help us understand the present.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I read over 130 books since last November, but I also gave up on several titles not because they weren’t good; they just didn’t fit what I wanted to read at the time. Two of them were titles that appeared on highly respected “Best” lists and were by two of my favorite authors, yet I gave up on both after reading over one hundred pages. Life is short; don’t spend any of it reading something that isn’t what you want at the time. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I offer this list with the hope that some of the titles on it will provide you with “uniquely portable” reading pleasure.</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-20ab2268-7fff-63d5-32e3-46b11c377352" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hungry for Good Books? Annual Book List, 2022</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">©Copyright December 1, 2022, by Trina Hayes</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Letters after each selection designate the book as CC: Chinese Carryout (page-turners, great for plane rides), D: Desserts (delightful indulgences), DC: Diet Coke and Gummi Bears (books for teens and young adults), G: Gourmet (exquisite writing, requires concentration), GPR: Grandma’s Pot Roast (books that get your attention and stick with you), GS: Grits (evocative of the American south), OC: Over Cooked (good ingredients, but overwritten), PBJ: Peanut Butter and Jelly (children’s books adults will like), PP: Pigeon Pie (historical fiction, parts or all of the novel set at least 50 years ago), R: Road Food (audio books for road trips and more), S: Sushi with Green Tea Sorbet (satire, irony, black humor, acquired taste), SBP: Sweet Bean Paste (translated and international books), SF: Soul Food (spirituality, theology, books for your soul), SN: Super Nutrition (lots of information, yet tasty as fresh blueberries), and T: Tapas (small bites including short stories, novellas, essays, and poetry). The letters BC denote books for book clubs. Asterisks (*) depict the most outstanding titles in each designation. The plus sign (+) is for books I recommend. The number sign (#) is for books with full reviews on my blog. All books listed were published in 2022 unless noted otherwise.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">General Fiction and Poetry</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Adams, Sara Nisha, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Reading List </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a poignant look at the power of books and reading to help people connect during difficult times. Mukesh misses his beloved wife and his children worry about his isolation. Aleisha is a smart teen who works in their local West London library and is concerned about her mother who isolates herself in their apartment. When Mukesh asks Aleisha to help him find a book to connect with his granddaughter, a reading list Aleisha finds brings the community together. This debut novel cleverly shows how books can help with grieving and mental health issues. It’s a caring, simple read that isn’t sappy. Trigger warning for suicide. GPR/SN/SBP, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Allende, Isabel, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Violeta</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is told as a letter from 100-year-old Violeta to her grandson. She documents the dictatorship of her unnamed South American country and the changes later. She also describes her romantic relationships, her connection to the land and the indigenous people, and why she becomes a feminist. It felt forced particularly as she rationalized her wealth and her relationship with the father of her children. Allende fans may appreciate her long descriptions. I wanted more character development. OC/PP</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Backman, Fredrik, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Winners</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the third entry in the Beartown trilogy and at 688 pages, I still want more as I’m not ready to leave these characters. Maya, Benji, and Amat return to Beartown and Matteo seeks revenge for his sister’s death while the hockey club is investigated for embezzling. The “aha” moment and ending are just what this reader wanted despite my tears. GPR/SBP, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Blau, Jessica Anya, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mary Jane</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a maraschino cherry atop a hot fudge sundae of a book. In 1970s Baltimore, Mary Jane is fourteen, sings in the church choir, cooks with her mother, and obeys rules. Her summer job as a nanny for the five-year-old daughter of a local doctor upends her life when the doctor’s patient, a rock star being treated for drug addiction, and his movie star wife move in. Mary Jane becomes everyone’s Mary Poppins: cooking, cleaning, singing; she’s practically perfect in every way. Yet, it’s Mary Jane who learns joy and self-acceptance in one dream of a summer in a home filled with sex, drugs, and rock & roll. You’ll read it in a day. CC/D/GPR/PP, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Bradbury, Ray, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Something Wicked This Way Comes</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the 1962 classic, is a sinister tale describing the arrival of a midnight carnival. It’s packed with luminous sentences and is worth reading as a caution against the seductive powers of evil. I can’t call it enjoyable, but we need to read similar books to understand the power of fascism and demagoguery. G/PP/S, BC (1962)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Brown, Kimberly Garrett, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cora’s Kitchen </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">illuminates the 1928 life of Cora, a Black librarian in Harlem who wants to be a writer but has no time due to family responsibilities. When a wealthy white woman becomes her patron and gives her a copy of the novel </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Awakening, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cora wants to write about women’s fears and yearnings. Langston Hughes’s imagined letters to Cora enhance this debut gem. PP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Center, Katherine, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Bodyguard, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes you need a tug-at-the-heart rom-com to get you through a dreary day or exhausting year. Hannah, a recently dumped, highly trained personal protection agent (a.k.a. bodyguard), gets assigned to protect Jack, a gorgeous movie star, from a stalker. Jack’s mom is recovering from cancer surgery and begs him to stay with the family at their Texas ranch so Hannah fakes being his girlfriend as cover and the sparks ignite. It has a happy, but not sappy, ending readers love. D</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Chan, Jessamine, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The School for Good Mothers</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is original, phenomenal, terrifying, and heartbreaking. Frida Liu is a mess. Her husband left her and her beloved toddler daughter isn’t sleeping so sleep-deprived Frida makes an egregious mistake. The state wants to send her away to learn to be a good mother, but the Big Brother training is unimaginable with AI children that spy on the “mothers“ learning to care for them. This debut is so taut and propulsive that you won’t stop reading even when you don’t want to know. The dark exploration of patriarchy, power, and expectations of motherhood is frightening because it feels so real. Book club! GPR/S, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Chen, Katherine J, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joan </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tells of Joan of Arc when she’s a larger-than-life soldier leading men into battle to beat the English and to secure the crowning of the Dauphin as King. This novel relates the real Joan, not a cardboard Saint. This Joan is a strong, courageous woman who could have saved her country if only the King had listened to her. Atmospheric and real! GPR/PP/SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Cole, Lee, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Groundskeeping, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Owen, a poor aspiring writer, returns to his Kentucky hometown and takes a job as a groundskeeper at the local college so he can audit a writing workshop. He meets Alma, a published author and the daughter of wealthy Bosnian immigrants, and they fall for each other despite their differences. The writing is spectacular and the minor characters are realistic and make you care. This one deserves a prize. It’s a stellar debut about writers and families. G/GS, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Colgan, Jenny, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christmas at the Island Hotel</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a whimsical, witty Christmas romance set on the fictional island of Mure in the North Atlantic between Norway and Scotland. A disheveled French chef and a rude Norwegian with no skills arrive on the island to help open a world-class hotel. The setting, clever repartee, a bizarre little girl, and kindness win the day. A frothy delight. D 2020</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Day, Fiona, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lions of Fifth Avenue </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is recommended for library and book lovers. It takes place primarily in 1914 in the New York Public Library where Laura, a would-be journalist, lives with her children and her husband who’s the library’s Building Superintendent. A parallel story takes place in 1993 focusing on Sadie, Laura’s granddaughter, who works in special collections at the library. Several thefts including one of an Edgar Alan Poe first edition in 1914 have ramifications in 1993. Some plot points don’t seem realistic and character development isn’t strong, but the library scenes make up for the book’s deficiencies. GPR/PP/SN (2020)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Di Pietrantonio, Donatella, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Sister’s Story </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is an expressive tale told by an unnamed narrator, a professor in Grenoble, who is called to her hometown in Italy where her sister has been in a serious accident. The narrator recalls her sister’s complicated past along with her own life and marriage. Precise and haunting language invigorates the tragic, yet hope-filled story of sisters who first appeared in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Girl Returned</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. G/SBP, BC </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Duan, Carlina, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alien Miss </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a brilliant, lyrical poetry collection that highlights identity and family history as it documents the complexities of belonging. It’s a challenging and beautiful ode to heritage and culture. G/T (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Ernaux, Annie, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Happening </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a short introduction to the 2022 Nobel Prize winner’s work. In 1999, a writer recalls being a pregnant graduate student in search of an abortion in 1963 Paris when abortion was illegal. With legal abortion threatened in the U S, seeing a woman’s actions and feelings while securing one is compelling. Her remembrance of the song “Dominique” brought back many memories. “Imagining and memory are the very essence of writing.” Ernaux’s details make the reader feel the student’s turmoil. G/PP/T (2000)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Fay, Kim, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love & Saffron, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">set in the 1960s, this charmingly poignant, delightful epistolary novel blends friendship, food, and life. When Joan sends Imogen a fan letter regarding her “Letter from the Island” column along with a packet of saffron from a trip to the “Far East,” a correspondence blossoms with shared recipes, advice, and kindness that will melt even the hardest heart. Taking risks in friendship and love makes for one fine escape of a novel you’ll devour in a day. One sentence seems meant for today: “The less we cement ourselves to our certainties, the fuller our lives can be.” D/GPR/PP, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Garmus, Bonnie, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lessons in Chemistry </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is a fast-paced, character-driven tale that’s long on humor and filled with wisdom and nuance. You’ll chuckle as gifted Elizabeth refuses to act dumb to get ahead and cheer as the bad guys get their comeuppance. Even Elizabeth’s brilliant, protective dog is a delight. Elizabeth is a chemist working at a private lab in the 1960s. She falls in love with brilliant chemist Calvin and after he dies, she’s fired and needing money takes a job hosting a TV cooking show. I adore this novel and found it realistic because I lived through such misogyny. GPR/D/PP/S, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Ginder, Grant, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s Not Do That Again</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a clever romp that skewers politics while examining family loyalty. Nancy’s running for the Senate when her daughter decamps to Paris and embarrasses her while her gay son remains loyal. With sentences like this one calling the US “a country that prioritizes showmanship over facts. All you have to do is bark the loudest and they’ll give you your own television show,” the novel is wryly observant. The author’s experience as John Podesta’s speechwriter makes it feel true. S, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Guard, Anara, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like a Complete Unknown </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">embeds the reader in technicolor 1970 Chicago where you hear the roar of the El overhead, feel the growing pains of young Katya as she embraces her dream despite having no say about her body, celebrate a widowed doctor’s emergence into a world where he can help others and experience love, grasp the fears of 18-year-olds hiding from being sent to die in Viet Nam, and see the world change. A debut winner. GPR/PP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Gunty, Tess, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Rabbit Hutch, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">winner of the National Book Award, is an imaginative debut that’s a terrifying and brutal reminder of how power corrupts and communities decline. Set in a rust belt town similar to South Bend where the author grew up, it’s a postmodern look at the devastating results of climate change and lack of jobs. Gunty is a gorgeous, poetic writer and Blandine is a magnificent character, but this is an emotionally difficult book. I could ruminate for hours over the significance of the rabbits. G/S, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Guterson, David, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Final Case, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers for a hybrid literary novel and courtroom drama that confronts major themes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Heller, Miranda Crowley, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Paper Palace </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the wooded Cape Cod summer place where Elle feels most at home. She narrates one 24-hour day set there that’s interspersed with the events of her life and how they have her pondering what to do next. She’s deeply troubled by two long-ago incidents. There’s much to recommend in this debut, but the details often interfere with the story. The banter between Elle’s husband and mother is delicious. The ending in this debut is one some will find ambiguous. I think it’s just right. GPR (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Henley, Linda Stewart, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Waterbury Winter </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a light, happily-ever-after novel about a grieving artist with a drinking problem who meets two women and finds a way to overcome his debts as setbacks threaten his recovery. While I loved Barnaby, I found the plot improbable and predictable and the ending too neatly resolved. Others will find it heartwarming. Henley’s descriptions of Barnaby creating his paintings were beautifully done. GPR</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Henry, Emily, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Book Lovers</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a clever spin on the “uptight career woman finds love in a small town” romance archetype with tenacious literary agent Nora and her sister Libby vacationing in a small North Carolina town where Libby’s favorite romance novels are set. Literary agent Nora falls for Charlie, a sarcastic editor in town to help his parents, but the story is primarily about Libby’s and Nora’s relationship. Steamy sex scenes enliven the action. It’s the “beachiest” of beach reads, a page-turner with solid characters and lively dialogue. D, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Henry, Emily, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beach Read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a novel about two writers who’ve suffered romantic and familial loss and end up living next to each other in a West Michigan beach town. I enjoyed the insider knowledge of researching and writing a novel whether a rom-com or a literary prize winner. D/SN (2018)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Hilderbrand, Elin, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Winter Stroll: Book 2 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the second in the Hallmark-style Christmas series set at a family-owned inn on Nantucket. In this edition, the owner’s son Bart has been captured by unknown forces in Afghanistan, his older son Patrick is doing time for insider trading, his wife is having trouble coping, and his sister is juggling two men who want to marry her. It’s more predictable than the first book but still offers a quick escape. D (2015)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Hilderbrand, Elin, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Winter Storms: Book 3, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the third in the rom-com Christmas series set at a family inn on Nantucket, features first wife and beloved TV news anchor Margaret and her surgeon boyfriend, daughter Ava and her three suitors, son Kevin’s wedding, Kelley’s illness, and the ongoing trauma of Bart being held in Afghanistan. While it’s entirely predictable, it offers a comforting escape. D (2016)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Hirahara, Naomi, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clark and Division, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">see Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers for an insightful and intriguing combination of historical fiction and whodunnit about Japanese Americans in Chicago during WWII.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Holmes, Linda, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Evvie Drake Starts Over</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is simply lovely. It’s a charming debut about Evvie Drake, a quirky, tender woman, who feels guilty after her doctor husband dies in an accident and no one knows that their marriage wasn’t bliss and she was about to leave him. Enter Dean, a major league pitcher, who can no longer throw straight and is deemed a national head case. Sometimes, you need a hope-filled love story and this is one. D/GPR, BC (2019)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+House, Silas, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lark Ascending </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a quiet, poetic, hope-filled post-apocalyptic novel set after fires destroy much of the U.S. and religious zealots are in control. Lark and his family live off the grid for years in Maine, but when the fires arrive, they escape on a small boat bound for Ireland where things are supposedly better. Only Lark survives the journey and Ireland is no longer welcoming, but he meets a woman and one of the world’s only surviving dogs and begins a new journey. A beautiful tale of loyalty, courage, and oh, that dog. G/GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Huneven, Michelle, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Search </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a wry and clever novel that explores how committees work and how they don’t. Watching a search committee try to select a new pastor for their Southern California Unitarian Universalist church through the eyes of a member who hopes to use the experience to write a book, is an exercise in the way leadership influences decision-making. Purposefully over-the-top characters and selfish decisions wreak havoc in a novel book clubs will savor. S, BC </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Keegan, Claire, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Foster </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a novella set in rural where a father takes his daughter to a relative’s home to stay while her mother has another baby. With the Kinsellas, the young girl finds love, gentle care, acceptance, and finally enough to eat. She also learns of deep family loss. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Foster </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was originally a short story published in the New Yorker in 2010. It’s been reissued as a novella and offers classic, poignant, gorgeous writing. G/SBP/T, BC </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Keegan, Claire, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Small Things Like These </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is an exquisite short novel set just before Christmas in a small town in Ireland in 1985. Bill, a coal merchant and father of five daughters, works hard to support his beloved family. When he discovers a distressed girl at the convent school, he has to make a decision that could ruin their lives. Forget your Hallmark Christmas, this is a true Christmas classic and Bill is a character to remember. The nuanced writing makes you see the setting in sepia tones. The way the town is set apart from the world has an otherworldly “It’s a Wonderful Life” feeling. At 128 pages every word is perfect. I will reread this Booker finalist every December. G/GPR/SBP/SN/T, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Kingsolver, Barbara, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Demon Copperhead, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inspired by </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David Copperfield</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Kingsolver creates a hero born in a single-wide trailer to an unmarried mother, a boy who suffers through foster care, bad schools, addiction, and loss after loss. Set in an Appalachia he cherishes that’s been overwhelmed by OxyContin and its effects, Demon is remarkably resilient. A winner! GPR/GS, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Korelitz, Jean Hanff, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Latecomer</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> follows the wealthy Oppenheimer family and their triplets born via IVF. While their mother pushes family bonds, their father visits his art collection and a woman involved in a tragedy he’s never fully explored. Written in three parts, the second when the triplets are in college drifts and makes the reader wonder whether to continue, but the third section’s pacing and exploration of grief, race, identity, and acceptance ties everything together with nuance and perfect narration from the eponymous latecomer. GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Laurain, Antoine with illustrations by Le Sonneur, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red is My Heart </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is an illustrated story of heartbreak as told by a narrator trying to get over a woman who left him. The words in 28 free verse vignettes illustrated in red, black, and white with ladders taking the reader into the void of loss mimic disappointment while maintaining hope. An imaginative blend of art and prose. S/SBP/T</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Leary, Ann, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Children </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is set primarily at Lakeside Cottage, the decaying home owned for generations by the Whitman family and now inhabited by Whit Whitman’s widow Joan. Joan’s daughter Charlotte has been staying there and seldom leaves the compound. Her sister Sally has moved in temporarily and their stepbrother Spin has just arrived with his fiancée. Someone isn’t who they purport to be. The family dynamics are clever and the pace is compelling, but the plot often seems implausible and was wrapped up too quickly. GPR (2017)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Leary, Ann, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Foundling</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the 1927 story of Mary who in her new job as a secretary at a Pennsylvania state home for “Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age” admires the woman who runs the home, a psychiatrist who she believes protects the women in the home. Mary soon learns that a girl from her childhood orphanage is one of the inmates listed as a “moron” although Mary knows she’s smart. Mary also sees the corruption and horrific treatment of the women and begins to question the methods used even though it may cost her her job. The fast pace and an ending everyone loves offer escape and a cautionary tale. My book club had a phenomenal discussion of this. Make sure you read it; the audio is dreadful. GPR/PP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Linfoot, Jane, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Little Cornish Kitchen: Book 1 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">follows Clemmie to the Cornwall coast where she’s inherited her grandmother’s flat. With her childhood best friends, she learns to bake and hosts soirées to earn enough to fix the flat and return to her job in Paris. Enter Mr. Perfect, her neighbor Charlie, and romance buds. There are several grammatical errors and not much character development, but the recipes and setting are charming. D/SBP (2018)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Linfoot, Jane, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Winter Warmer at the Cornish Kitchen: Book 3 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a step up from Linfoot’s Cornish debut. It’s an uncomplicated Christmas romance with charm from its Cornwall setting. Pure escape with a happy ending. D/SBP </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Loigman, Linda Cohen, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Matchmaker’s Gift</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a dual timeline novel about Sara, a child who moved to the US in 1918, and later about Abby, her granddaughter, in the 1990s. Sara worked secretly as a matchmaker finding ways to connect soulmates until the men who made money at matchmaking tried to stop her. When Sara died, she left written details of her matches to Abby with a challenge. It’s a lovely tale of family and women’s rights. GPR/PP, BC </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Morrison, Toni, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recitatif: a Story</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the only short story Morrison wrote. It begins with the friendship of two eight-year-old girl roommates in a children’s shelter then continues when they meet again years later. It’s Morrison’s language experiment in which she keeps the reader from discerning which of the girls is Black and which is white. Her removal of racial codes in a story about two characters of different races is both unique and challenging. The story becomes a mystery that the reader examines intimately hoping to find clues to the girls’ racial identities despite that being a construct. It’s brilliant. The book opens with a new introduction that I believe shouldn’t be read until after reading the story. G/SN/T, BC (1983 with 2022 Introduction by Zadie Smith)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Ng, Celeste, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our Missing Hearts</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a terrifyingly realistic picture of America in the near future when laws preserving American culture make people’s acts and everything Asian frightening and illegal. Government controls everyone. Bird, who’s twelve, lives with his father in a dorm room at the college where he once taught. Bird’s mother, a Chinese-American poet, left them when Bird was nine. They never speak of her or her poem’s words: “Our Missing Hearts” that the unseen resistance uses to fight the taking of children. This is a beautiful narrative of injustice, fear, love, and art in a scary world. I adore that an underground network of librarians cleverly works to reunite families. GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+O’Farrell, Maggie, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Marriage Portrait </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is based on the forced marriage of 15-year-old Lucretia de Medici to a much older Duke of Ferrara. We know from the beginning that The Duke intends to kill Lucretia and what follows is more O’Farrell’s brilliant attention to historical detail rather than a “will she survive” epic. O’Farrell completely embeds her readers in the period. PP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Otsuka, Julie, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Swimmers </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a heartbreaking and tender novel of loss and fear with a touch of biting satire. Beginning in the first-person-plural, a chorus of swimmers at a municipal pool document their days and the crack that appears in the pool and frightens them all. Alice, one of the swimmers, is fighting dementia and her life is mirrored in the pool’s fissure. The book is written with dignity and restraint, but it’s still a difficult emotional read. Select it for your book club so you’ll have companions for the journey. At just 173 pages, there isn’t a single unnecessary word. It’s a master class in writing. G/T, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Perkins-Valdez, Dolen, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take My Hand </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">takes place primarily in Montgomery, AL in 1973 where Civil, a newly graduated Black nurse, works in a federally funded clinic serving poor Black women and girls. When she learns that 11 and 13-year-old sisters are being given unapproved birth control shots, she plans to intervene but doesn’t act soon enough. The novel also looks at Civil’s life in 2016 when she’s nearing retirement as an OB-GYN who can’t let go of the past. It’s a page-turner that Brit Bennett and Tayari Jones’s fans will enjoy. Read it to learn about the forced sterilization and horrific medical treatment of Black women and children and to bear witness to what we’ve allowed. GS/PP/GS/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Reid, Taylor Jenkins, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Carrie Soto is Back </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the story of Carrie, the retired holder of a record twenty grand slam tennis wins who wants to return to tennis to keep newbie Nikki Chan from breaking her record. Her trainer father brings in Bowe Huntley, a player she’d once dated, to train with her. Known as “The Battle Axe,” for her strong demeanor, Carrie may finally gain a personal life with Bowe. An enjoyable escape with a strong message. GPR, BC</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Roorbach, Bill, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucky Turtle</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">begins when 16-year-old Cindra is sent to a Montana wilderness camp instead of being incarcerated for her part in an armed robbery in Massachusetts. She and Lucky, a camp employee, escape into the wilderness where Lucky’s knowledge helps them survive as they fall in love and Cindra becomes pregnant. The treatment of the Montana landscape makes the book sing, but sometimes the story slogs with multiple characters and the Native Americans often seem stereotypical. Humor and love save this novel. GPR/S</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rostad, Dianna, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You Belong Here Now </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tells of three children who escape a 1925 orphan train and end up on a cattle ranch in Montana run by tough Nara, the ranch owner’s daughter. This debut is for those wanting a heartfelt story. It may not be deep, but it’s a decent emotional escape. CC/PP/SN (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Ryan, Jennifer, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a pure romantic escape set in World War II England where rationing means that most women can’t wed in a white gown or even a new dress. Violet, the privileged and flighty aristocrat, grows up when she’s called to serve. Cressida, Violet’s aunt, a top London couturier, finds friendship when she moves to the country after her home is destroyed in the Blitz. Grace, the quiet helper to her Vicar father, comes out of her shell when the village women meet to mend and remake clothing including wedding gowns. All experience unexpected romance. While it’s predictable and somewhat clichéd, it’s thoroughly enjoyable. CC/D/PP</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Scottoline, Lisa, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eternal </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the story of three childhood friends in Rome before and during WWII. Sandro is from an old and distinguished, scholarly Jewish family. Marco is Catholic and his father is a famous cyclist who now owns a popular bar. Both vie for Elisabetta, an aspiring writer, who works in a fine restaurant. The details are well researched and the novel shows the horrors of the treatment of the Italian Jews who didn’t expect Mussolini to abandon them. It’s an authentic romance and a plot-driven thriller. The recipes make the book feel truly Italian. CC/PP/SN, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Sheriff, R. C., </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Fortnight in September </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was written in 1931 and reissued in 2021. Kazuo Ishiguro selected it as his best book for the pandemic and noted it as “uplifting, life-affirming . . . The beautiful dignity to be found in everyday living has rarely been captured more delicately.” It chronicles the Stevens family on their annual two-week holiday on the southern coast of England where nothing of consequence happens, yet you fall into the rhythm of an ordinary family living a simple life with gratitude for the joy of being together on holiday. It’s a winner. GPR/PP/SBP, BC (1931/reissue 2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Shipman, Viola, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Wish for Winter </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is set in one of my favorite places on earth—Petoskey, Michigan. The main character, Susan Norcross, is named for my friends, the family of owners of Petoskey’s Mc Lean & Eakin Booksellers, and the setting is modeled after that bookstore and the town. I love how Shipman makes the town come alive from walking the shore in search of Petoskey stones to wandering among the old homes. The story of searching for love and forgiveness is charming, but it’s the setting that’s stellar in this Christmas romance. D</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Sloan, Lynn, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Midstream </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is set primarily in Chicago in 1974 where Polly works as an illustrations editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica on Michigan Avenue. She yearns to work in film and recalls the time she spent on an aborted film project in Wisconsin in 1962. When her closest friend becomes ill and Polly receives an unexpected letter, she reconsiders her life. I loved the setting but didn’t fully connect with the characters’ journeys in this page-turner. CC/SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Slocumb, Brendan, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Violin Conspiracy, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">see Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers for a roller-coaster ride of a story about a young Black violinist.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Strong, Lynn Steger, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Flight </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shows how two brothers and their sister handle their grief after their beloved mother’s death. Set from December 22 to 24 when the siblings gather with their spouses and children at brother Henry and his wife Alice’s home, the novel shares the feelings of two of the wives as mothers, Alice whose miscarriages leave her grieving, and Alice’s clients, a young mother and her daughter Maddie. Will their squabbling over their inheritance and Maddie’s disappearance help or hinder their individual flights to find peace? GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Strout, Elizabeth, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucy by the Sea </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the fourth entry in the Lucy Barton series following last year’s stellar Booker nominee </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh William! </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and is similar in tone in its quiet approach. In March 2020, William, a scientist, whisks Lucy off to the rural Maine coast and begs their daughters to leave New York City as well. He believes that Covid will be serious and wants to keep his ex-wife Lucy and their children safe. As they navigate their 14-day self-imposed quarantine with the help of Bob Burgess from Strout’s 2013 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Burgess Boys, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they realize that they’ll long be sequestered. Lucy is every one of us who lived the emotional roller coaster that was the first year of the pandemic. She helps us see how we got to be so divided and offers us company as we ponder where the past years will lead us. I ADORE this. G/GPR, BC </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Stuart, Douglas, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Young Mungo </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">follows Stuart’s Booker Prize </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shuggie Bain </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with another brutal yet gorgeously composed portrait of poverty’s effects. Stuart shows who the characters are as he does with the minor character Hamish who impregnated his 15-year-old girlfriend. She wouldn’t name him as the father so the birth certificate read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unknown </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in fine calligraphy. Hamish tattooed the word behind his right ear. Stuart makes readers feel the effects of the Thatcher administration and the anguish of being gay in 1980s Ireland. Brilliant! G, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Stukenberg, Jill, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">News of the Air, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pregnant Allie and her librarian husband Bud flee from Chicago and buy a dilapidated resort in northern Wisconsin to escape checkpoints and climate problems. Now baby Cassie is a teen and the world’s problems are enveloping their refuge. Novels that can be read quickly while overlooking a stream rarely offer so much to ponder. This debut glimpse of the Northwoods of the future is eerily realistic and is also a fine character study of marriage and family dynamics. GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Summie, Caitlin Hamilton, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Geographies of the Heart </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a compelling, complex debut novel about an ordinary family told in three voices that will capture your heart. Sarah, a responsible college senior searching for a job, meets Al, a Ph.D. student. He’s large, lumbering, and shy and I’m head-over-heels in love with him. Glennie, Sarah’s sister, a single-minded medical student, has no time for family. Sarah cares for her grandparent and her rift with Glennie grows. The sisters love each other but see the world differently. This is one of the best books I’ve read in years. It includes some characters from her magnificent collection </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To Lay to Rest Our Ghosts</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. G/GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Tyler, Anne, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">French Braid </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is pure delight that follows a Baltimore family from the 1950s to today. It’s funny, joy-filled, and quiet yet it sneaks up on you when you least expect it. A fiftieth-anniversary celebration broke my heart in the best way when a “loaf pan of salmon with a crusty brown top. . . Looked so cozy. . . Like I finally had a home.” Tyler makes ordinary lives sing. GPR/PP, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Umrigar, Thrity, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honor</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Smita left India with her family as a young teen and promised herself she’d never go back, but when her closest friend and fellow journalist falls ill and can’t write the story of Meena, a Hindu woman attacked by her family for marrying a Muslim, Smita feels compelled to tell the story. Meena and her daughter Abru captured my heart and the horrors of their lives plus the way the treatment of women and anyone a group deems “other” is beautifully but tragically told. I can’t think of another author who consistently makes readers bear witness to those treated as less than human as Umrigar also did in her magnum opus </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Space Between Us. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This will break your heart. GPR/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Van Pelt, Shelby, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Remarkably Bright Creatures </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a delightful, wry, debut novel featuring Marcellus, an intelligent octopus living at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. After her husband of 47 years died, Tova Sullivan began working nights as a cleaner at the Aquarium. Staying busy has helped her since her son Erik mysteriously disappeared in Puget Sound over 30 years ago. Tova and Marcellus become friends and the result is pure magic. Escape into this charmer and celebrate friendship, community, and one amazing octopus. D/GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Walton, Dawnie, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Final Revival of Opal and Nev</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a fantastic debut and winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Written as a fictional oral history, it documents Afro-punk singer Opal and her goofy white British songwriter partner Nev from the early 1970s when a confederate flag turns their concert into a career-changing riot to today. As Sunny, the first black woman editor of a top music magazine, prepares to tell their story, the reader learns of her connection to Opal. This is a winner of a tale with fabulous characters. GPR/PP/SN (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#West, Catherine Adel, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Two Lives of Sara </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">depicts the music, church traditions, and camaraderie of early 1960s Black Memphis. Pregnant Sara flees Chicago for Memphis where a family friend welcomes her to a boarding house where she finds acceptance and love. This prequel to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saving Ruby King </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">stands alone. It’s a novel of love, trauma, resiliency, religion, and prejudice that’s both a page-turner and a novel you’ll long contemplate. GPR/GS/PP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Wilkerson, Charmaine, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black Cake </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a dual timeline novel that begins on a Caribbean island where teen swimmer Covey throws herself into the sea after her gangster husband dies during their wedding reception. Covey flees the island and the story resumes in 2018 in California where two estranged siblings are learning of their mother’s past from her lawyer after her death. The twists are delicious in this debut novel of grief, loyalty, racism, and finding your passion all tied together through a traditional cake. GPR/PP/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Wilson, Antoine, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mouth to Mouth </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">has a plot twist you won’t expect, yet it makes perfect sense. In a first-class airport lounge, the book’s narrator meets Jeff, a former college friend, who tells him a wild tale of saving a drowning man’s life and then learning more about him as their lives converge. Don’t read ahead! It’s imaginative and propulsive and was on Obama’s 2022 list. CC/GPR/S, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Yarbrough, Steve</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Stay Gone Days, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After a tragedy in the small Mississippi town where they grew up, teenagers Ella and Caroline become separated. Ella marries and leads a conventional life. Caroline reinvents herself in Europe. This novel makes you yearn for their reconciliation. It’s an authentic rendering of a family dynamic that’s both personal and universal. It’s mesmerizing. GPR/BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Zevin, Gabrielle, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by the author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">showcases the lives of two teen best friends who reconnect in college and collaborate on a video game that pilots them to stardom. Along with their close friend and business manager, they navigate love and loyalty. Who knew gaming could be so intriguing! GPR/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Allen, Samantha Jayne, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pay Dirt Road</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, winner of the Tony Hillerman Award for the best debut novel, is reminiscent of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Friday Night Lights </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in its depiction of a small Texas town. Annie has returned to Garnett after college graduation and is waitressing at the local café. After a bonfire, her fellow waitress is found murdered in a rural area and their immigrant cook is arrested for the crime. Annie and her grandfather investigate and find ties to a company buying up land for a pipeline. Great description of land and place with a leisurely pace. GPR</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Clark, Tracy, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Broken Places: A Chicago Mystery #1</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the first in the series featuring Cass, a former Chicago PD detective, who’s now a private investigator. When her mentor and father figure, Pop, a Chicago priest, is murdered, Cass’s nemesis, a CPD detective with clout, calls it a suicide, but Cass finds disputing clues among the southside homeless. Great characters. CC/GPR, BC (2018)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Clark, Tracy, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Borrowed Time: A Chicago Mystery #2</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> features Cass taking on the case of a supposed suicide aboard a boat that a strange young man is certain was murder. Soon Cass is in danger as powerful people don’t want her investigating the case. These characters ring true. (2019)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Cole, Alyssa, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When No One is Watching </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a frightening psychological suspense tale of what could happen when ruthless people take over neighborhoods to make money. It’s as if the movie “Get Out” became real as Black residents disappear from or are forced to sell their homes in a gentrifying Brooklyn area while Sydney tries to save her grandmother’s home. The overt racism is sadly realistic. CC, BC (2020)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Dave, Laura, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Last Thing He Told Me </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a suspense-filled thriller that’s also a careful pondering of trust, marriage, and family allegiance. Hannah and Owen have only been married a year when he disappears and leaves a note saying </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Protect her.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Hannah knows he’s writing about his 16-year-old daughter Bailey whose mother died when she was four. When the F.B.I. and the U.S. Marshall visit her, Hannah learns that Owen wasn’t who he said he was. She puts herself in danger to try to learn enough to keep herself and Bailey safe. Great twists in a book I couldn’t put down for a minute. GPR, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Faulkner, Katherine, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Greenwich Park </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a debut suspense thriller. Helen is pregnant and it looks like she’ll finally make it to term. Her brother and her husband run the architectural firm her father started and her brother and his wife are also expecting. Helen meets Rachel, a bizarre, yet engaging single mom-to-be, in a prenatal class. Rachel is fun, wild, and needy. Helen and her husband allow Rachel to stay in their home until everything falls apart and she disappears. If you like unreliable narrators, this is for you. The upper-class London setting works, but one of the twists is too easy to detect. CC/SBP</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Foley, Lucy, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Paris Apartment </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">follows Jess to Paris where she’s running from her problems in England. She arrives at her half-brother Ben’s apartment just as he’d directed her the night before, but he’s missing from the posh Paris flat she can’t imagine him being able to afford. His neighbors are standoffish and don’t want to answer her questions. What can she do when everyone is a suspect and danger lurks? The buildup felt forced, but the twist at the end was brilliant. CC/SBP</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Guterson, David, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Final Case</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is told by a once successful novelist whose father, an elderly attorney, agrees to represent a white fundamentalist Christian mother accused in the hypothermia death of her adopted Ethiopian daughter. The narrator accompanies his father to court and then continues documenting the case after his father dies during the trial. The book examines religion, love, justice, and white privilege. It’s a literary novel examining family relationships that’s much more than a courtroom drama. Book clubs could spend hours discussing this one. GPR/SF, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harper, Jordan, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She Rides Shotgun</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was recommended by S.A. Cosby, one of my favorite mystery writers, and wow did it deliver. The day Nate gets out of prison his ex-wife and her husband are brutally murdered and he learns that an Aryan gang that controls the local drug traffic plans to kill him and Polly, his 11-year-old daughter, so he grabs her and runs. Polly is a memorably gritty character. This debut novel is dark, yet filled with loyalty and love. Winner of the Edgar Award for the Best Debut Novel and an ALEX from the American Library Association.The pacing is incredible in this gem. CC/GPR, BC (2017)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Hirahara, Naomi,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Clark and Division </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a compelling and insightful mystery wrapped in a historical fiction novel set primarily in 1944 Chicago. I lived within two blocks of the intersection noted in the title in the 1970s and had never heard of a Japanese-American neighborhood there. Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from an internment camp in Manzanar so they follow Aki’s sister Rose to Chicago where she is killed by a subway train the night before they arrive. When officials say Rose killed herself, Aki investigates and finds sinister hidden plots and bigotry. It embeds you in her story. Looking forward to reading more from this Edgar winner. (Sequel due in 2023). GPR/PP/SN, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Nieh, Daniel, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take No Names </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is an action-packed thriller that feels like a film. Victor Li is a fugitive who with his employer, Mark, breaks into government storage units containing the possessions of the deported. When they find a rare gem with clues to selling it in Mexico, they head south where it’s impossible to discern if the villains are the Chinese or wealthy Americans who will profit by stoking anti-Chinese sentiment. Starting as a character-driven novel about Victor and Mark, it shifts to solid action and intrigue in Mexico. CC, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Offutt, Chris, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Killing Hills, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mick Hardin returns to his eastern Kentucky hill country home as his estranged wife nears her delivery date. He’s officially AWOL as a criminal investigator for the Army in Germany and uses his skills to investigate the death of a widow found in the hills. His sister, the sheriff, and a cast of unique characters make this more than just a whodunnit. Appalachian noir feels like a new genre in Offutt’s skilled hands. GPR/GS, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+O’Nan, Stewart, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ocean State</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a thriller and a literary novel. It opens with the line “When I was in eighth grade my sister helped kill another girl.” This “whydunit” rather than “whodunit” is a portrait of a 2009 working-class family with a mother trying to survive and raise her teenage daughters while looking for love. It’s not O’Nan’s best, but he makes people ring true. CC/GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Osman, Richard, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Bullet That Missed </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">brings back the Coopers Chase friends and their camaraderie in this third installment in the Thursday Murder Club series. Watching as some fall in love, others make new friends, and a few face crises, it’s always a delight to be with these characters. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Parks, Alan, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bloody January: Harry McCoy Thrillers #1 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">begins on January 1, 1973, when a young prostitute is killed and her killer immediately shoots and kills himself. The previous day, Glasgow Detective Harry McCoy is called to a maximum security prison where a dangerous prisoner warns him of the girl’s impending death. Why was he told? What does it mean? How might it be tied to McCoy’s nemesis? This first entry in the Tartan noir series offers complex criminals and cops in a gritty whodunnit with several twists. CC/PP/SBP (2017)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Parks, Alan, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">February’s Son: Harry McCoy Thrillers #2,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> continues damaged Detective Harry McCoy’s unusual foray into capturing bad guys. Opening with a particularly grisly murder that McCoy’s sensitive stomach can’t handle, we learn of his abused childhood and his then protector who’s now connected to recent murders and an escalating drug scene. Will they capture the killer in time or will he kill the crime syndicate head’s daughter? If you like moral ambiguity and flawed characters, this Edgar Award Finalist delivers. CC/PP/SBP (2019)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Parks, Alan, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bobby March Will Live Forever: Harry McCoy Thrillers #3, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">set in 1973, opens with all of Glasgow searching for a missing girl except Detective McCoy because his nemesis and temporary boss Raeburn wants him out of the way. Drugs, the troubles in Ireland, and old wounds add to the intricately woven story. Edgar Award Best Paperback Original CC//PPSBP (2020)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Parks, Alan, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The April Dead: Harry McCoy Thrillers #4, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An American sailor disappears and his father asks McCoy to find him while a series of bombings that hit Glasgow are tied to an underground organization bent on causing chaos and disruption in Scotland. McCoy’s vulnerability makes the books in this series memorable. Will he survive? CC//PPSBP (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Parks, Alan, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">May God Forgive: Harry McCoy Thrillers #5</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> begins with Harry just released from a hospital stay with a bleeding ulcer. A beauty salon has been set afire and the victims include little girls. The young arsonists are abducted from police custody and one is brutally killed with a promise to do the same to the others. Will Harry figure it out in time or will his demons win? This one almost broke my heart. Harry has become a part of me. CC/PP/SBP </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Pavone, Chris, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Expats, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">winner of the</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Edgar Award for the best first novel, follows Kate, the mother of two young boys, who quits her job as a clandestine CIA agent to follow her husband to a lucrative job in Luxembourg. Kate’s husband may be involved in the cyber theft of an obscene amount of money and their new American friends may not be who they seem. Will Kate’s secrets ruin their lives and who can they trust? Clever and engaging. CC (2012)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Pavone, Chris,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Two Nights in Lisbon</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Ariel and John, her husband of less than a year, are in Lisbon on a business trip. On their first morning, Ariel awakens and John is gone. She soon receives a demand for 3 million euros. Within two days, Ariel and John’s lives are dissected by the police and the CIA. Is what happened to Ariel 14 years ago connected to John’s kidnapping? Is Ariel in danger because of a secret about a politician? This propulsive novel of love and power will keep you flipping the pages. Who can you believe? CC/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Penny, Louise, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A World of Curiosities: Chief Inspector Gamache Book 18 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a winner. Gamache and Beauvoir revisit the murder of a drug addict/prostitute whose daughter has now graduated with an engineering degree after being helped by the Gamaches. She and her brother are back in Three Pines when a massive doctored replica of a famous painting surfaces and brings up earlier crimes. Can anyone be trusted? This superbly paced thriller shows why Penny is the best at showcasing forgiveness and evil. How do we face and stop evil without it entering our souls? I read it almost straight through. If you haven’t heard “Three Pines,” a series based on the Gamache books, is now available to stream on Prime Video. CC/GPR/SF, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Prose, Nita, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Maid </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a delightful tale about a 25-year-old, neurodivergent maid in an exclusive metropolitan hotel who discovers the body of a wealthy guest and finds herself under suspicion. She’s both naive and charming and the book is clever. The last third and the ending aren’t as phenomenal as the beginning, but as a whole, this is a cozy debut mystery readers will love. Molly, the maid, is a lovable, quirky character in a </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clue-</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">like setting. CC/GPR/D, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Richard, Saralyn, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bad Blood Sisters </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is both a traditional whodunnit that you’ll want to gulp down in one sitting and a psychological tale of insight into the hidden costs of holding onto secrets that won’t stay buried. You’ll love Quinn’s growth and you’ll shiver at the climax of this engaging story. The characters are well-drawn, the mystery is plausible and intriguing, and the details are well-researched and realistic. CC/GPR, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Richard, Saralyn, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crystal Blue Murder: Detective Parrott Book 3, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I love Detective Parrott and welcome his return. An elderly, renowned Brandywine Valley hostess’s historic barn has exploded and evidence points to there being a meth lab hiding there. Why would someone “cook up” such false clues? A winner of a mystery with great characters. CC, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Scottoline, Lisa, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Feared, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mary is a partner in her young, mostly female law firm and she’s pregnant. When menacing attorney Nick Machiavelli sues the firm for sex discrimination claiming three men weren’t hired because they were male, John, their one male attorney, plans to resign. Then, a murder changes everything. The ending twist came out of left field, but the book was still an enjoyable romp. CC (2018)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Slocumb, Brandon, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Violin Conspiracy </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a roller-coaster ride of a story about a young Black violinist who’s fighting for acceptance in the world of classical music. When his great-grandfather’s fiddle is found to be a Stradivarius that’s later stolen, it’s hard to turn the pages fast enough. CC/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Whitehead, Colson, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harlem Shuffle </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the story of Carney, a Harlem furniture store owner, husband, and father, who strives to be more than his petty criminal father. When his cousin involves him in fencing stolen merchandise, Carney sees it as a quick way to realize his dreams. The resulting intrigue leaves Carney conflicted in this clever look at race, power, and humility set in early 1960s Harlem. It’s as if you time-traveled to 125th St. While lighter than his last two epics, this one still packs a wallop. GPR/PP/S, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Winslow, Don, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">City on Fire</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shares the story of two 1980s crime families fighting for control in Rhode Island. Danny Ryan, son of a disgraced alcoholic and part of an Irish mob family, is called to save them. How does a man with morals explain his actions to protect his family? Looking forward to the second entry in the trilogy to tie up loose ends. Danny is a magnificent character. CC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Winspear, Jacqueline, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Consequences of Fear, Maisie Dobbs Book 16, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s 1941 and 12-year-old Freddie watches a murder while acting as a messenger. Scotland Yard doesn’t believe him so he goes to Maisie who finds the crime may be tied to a French intelligence agent. A Middle East connection to the war seemed unnecessary and distracting. CC/SN (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Winspear, Jacqueline, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Sunlit Weapon: Maisie Dobbs Book 17, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s 1942, and Jo, a ferry pilot, is shot at while delivering a Spitfire. She finds a bound and gagged American soldier nearby and two days later another ferry pilot is shot down in the same area. Meanwhile, Maisie’s husband is preparing for Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit to Britain and it looks like she’s a German target tied to the soldier and the aircraft shootings. Great insight into Maisie’s family. CC/SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nonfiction</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Barbarisi, Daniel, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chasing the Thrill: Obsession, Death, and Glory in America’s Most Extraordinary Treasure Hunt, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Forest Fenn’s story of accumulating a million dollars worth of treasure and burying it in a hidden spot near the Rocky Mountains then writing a book of clues led Barbarisi to follow the treasure hunters and tell their story which soon involved him more than he’d expected. Listen to the audio as Barbarisi is a masterful storyteller. R/SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Brooks, Arthur C., </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">offers counsel for accepting change as a gift that will help us find joy, contentment, and strength through identifying our purpose. Like the words of Brené Brown and Victor Frankel, the book challenges us to accept difficulties and embrace them. “Use things. Love people. Worship the Divine.” I love his fishing metaphor: “Kid, there’s only one mistake you can make in a falling tide. . . Not having your line in the water.” Stay engaged. SF/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Brougham, Rachel, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Widowland: A Collection of Essays on Grief </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shows how people who are grieving always say they’re fine, but they’re not. In 2018, Brougham and her husband Colin and their young son were living a good life until the day Colin was struck and killed by a train minutes from their home while riding his bike home from work. This is a beautiful portrait of grieving that everyone should read. It’s poignant, wry, and wonderful. GPR/SF </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Clark, Melissa, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is so Melissa Clark with great recipes that offer unique flavors and readily available ingredients. The bonus is cooking them in one sheet pan, skillet, pot, or multi-cooker. We loved Roast Chicken Tagine with Dates, Olives, and Lemons and Spicy Stir-Fried Pork with Green Beans and Tomatoes. Looking forward to trying her Green Shakshuka with Avocado, Chile, and Feta, Tahini Roasted Cod, and Cauliflower-Carrot Soup with Smoky Paprika Shrimp. SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Dennis, Jerry, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Up North in Michigan: A Portrait of Place in Four Seasons</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is another spectacular savoring of the north woods and lakes that’s both lyrical and practical in its documentation of four seasons in Michigan. It’s pure joy with lines like: “Gulls are universally slandered as flying rats, but it’s hard not to admire a tern for its sleek profile and graceful hinged wings. Gulls stand around like smart-asses with too much time on their hands, but terns are all business.” His ending meditation on reading is absolute perfection. G/SN, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*#Dombrowski, Chris, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The River You Touch: Making a Life on Moving Water </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a poetic memoir of parenthood, rivers, and place. A fishing guide, poet, and teacher, Dombrowski shares his love of his adopted home in Montana and of melding life as a writer, dad, and fisherman into a “mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet.” “Slurp of an oar blade, squeak of the oar locks. Water lapping at the hull.” It’s a lyrical book meant to be savored. G/SF, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Donner, Rebecca, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">makes readers feel as if they are a part of the resistance as Hitler takes power. Milwaukee-born Mildred Fish meets Arvid Harnack in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. They marry and move to Berlin where they teach and join the resistance. Arvid is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s cousin and he and other historical figures populate this masterpiece. The audio read by the author is phenomenal. It reads like a fine novel, yet it’s all true. GPR/R/SN</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Doyle, Glennon, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Untamed, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doyle was a best-selling author beloved in the Christian world for her bravery and openness when she announced her relationship with soccer star Abby Wambach who’s now her wife. Read her story for sentences like “Being fully human is not about feeling happy, it’s about feeling everything.” Her insights on control and trusting our instincts feel right because she presents them with courage and honesty. GPR/SF, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Evans, Rachel Held with Jeff Chu, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wholehearted Faith, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rachel died at 37 and Jeff Chu completed her exploration of living a life of faith. Finding and living life with doubt alongside wonder and then putting that faith into action is something Rachel continues teaching us. My church studied this and we are all better for it. Thank you Jeff Chu for capturing Rachel’s vision. (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Ford, Ashley C., </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">focuses primarily on Ford’s childhood and young adulthood as she examines how growing up with her father in prison and her mother unable to give unconditional love because of her own trauma had such a profound effect on her life. Her grandmother’s influence helps us see how she survived. The writing is brilliant with lines like: “My earliest memories are sunburnt Polaroids, frozen moments gone blurry at the edges and spotted all down the middle. Then, at four, the pictures become clearer and clearer, as do the voices within them.” G/GPR, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Garten, Ina, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barefoot Contessa Go-To Dinners </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a book I would recommend to newer cooks and those who don’t have her other cookbooks. I found many of the recipes to be riffs on ones I’ve made from her other books or ones I already know. I adore her “Easy Parmesan Risotto” from </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How Easy is That? </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and One-Pot Oven Risotto just swaps vegetables and seasonings and I don’t need a recipe for hot dogs in puff pastry. The French Bistro Salad and the Oven-Roasted Southern Shrimp Boil are deliciously new though. This would be a great wedding gift. Remember, when using Ina’s recipes, always use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt or substitute half any other salt if you must. SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Gilmer, Benjamin, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Other Dr. Gilmer: Two Men, a Murder, and an Unlikely Fight for Justice </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a compelling true story I read in one day. Benjamin Gilmer joined the rural North Carolina medical practice where Dr. Vince Gilmer had previously practiced. The two men were not related and Dr. Vince Gilmer was serving a life sentence for the murder of his father. Ben Gilmer, the “other” Dr. Gilmer, began investigating Vince Gilmer’s life trying to reconcile the beloved doctor his patients remembered with the cold-blooded killer. He found mental illness and a botched trial and began working to free Vince Gilmer. Incarceration of the mentally ill is everyone’s problem. SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hager, Charles with David T. Miller, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chicago Heights: Little Joe College, the Outfit, and the Fall of Sam Giancana </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the personal story of a boy from West Virginia who came to Chicago Heights, IL and became an intricate cog in the Chicago Outfit and its tangled connections, murders, and schemes in the 60s and 70s. I lived near the area at the time which made it interesting. SN (2018)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+#Johnson, Maureen and Cooper, Jay, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a clever treat. It offers a “survival” guide to +English villages—above all, avoid the Vicar—replete with Cooper’s Edmund Gorey-like illustrations. If you want a chuckle, escape here. D/S/T (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jones, Chloé Cooper, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Easy Beauty</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a philosophical exploration of beauty by a new mother, professor, writer, and thinker who’s been told that her life might not be worth living. Born with a rare condition that affects her height and gait, Jones fears engaging with a world that pities and disparages her. Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review and it’s on several “best” lists, but I had trouble connecting with her voice despite her fine writing. SN</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Kendi, Ibrahim X., </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America: 1619-2019 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">presents eighty chapters each depicting events and people in five-year segments beginning in 1619. I both read and listened to this and highly recommend the audio version where you hear each author, scholar, poet, and historian tell what occurred in that period. This should be required for all citizens. Carnegie Award finalist. Truth is powerful. G/R/SN, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Kimmerer, Robin Wall, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> weaves a beautiful tapestry of botany with native wisdom and traditions that embeds the reader (or listener) with sound ecological facts and the context with which to understand them. Kimmerer reads the audio and listening to her feels like she’s sitting by you telling you her story. Listen to this book and share it. GPR/R/SF/SN, BC (2013)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Millard, Candice, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">River of the.Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recounts the 1850s British exploration to find the source of the Nile in which the accomplished Richard Francis Burton tangled with aristocrat John Speke. For this reader, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, a formerly enslaved East African, was the tale’s hero and most fascinating character. Millard exposes the racist and empire-building tactics of the time without editorializing. Her strong character portrayals make the book sing. R/SN, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Schulz, Kathryn, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lost & Found: A Memoir,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Longlisted for the National Book Award, this memoir is told in three acts. The first explores the loss of Schulz’s father along with other types of loss. The second focuses on Schulz finding and falling in love and the third: the ampersand deals with all that connects us. Her examination of what it means to lose and to find is genius. When she writes, “To be prepared is not to be spared.” I felt seen. Listen to her read it. It feels both intimate and universal. G/R/SF, BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Totenberg, Nina, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dinners with Ruth: a Memoir on the Power of Friendships, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Totenberg’s debut celebrates her friendship with Ruth Badger Ginsberg and her husband and Totenberg’s powerful bonds with other friends. It’s a love letter to our need for friends in tough times and just for fun. Watching the two support each other when they lose their husbands and as they enjoyed shopping and gossip is revealing. It also affords a view of a time when political life was kinder. GPR/SN, BC </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Wang, Qian Julie, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beautiful Country </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is Wang’s memoir about growing up undocumented and in extreme poverty in America. She came to the U.S. at age seven in 1994. In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, means “beautiful country,” but Wang and her parents who had been professors in China found only hunger, prejudice, illness, and fear. Wang’s intelligence, curiosity, and drive helped her overcome the odds, but the trauma from her early years kept her wary of making connections. The writing is both exceptional and welcoming. G/SN, BC (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peanut Butter and Jelly - Picture Books and Chapter Books</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Applegate, Katherine, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Odder</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a delightful tale about Odder, a playful, curious otter bitten by a shark. Her story was inspired by a program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium that places orphaned pups with surrogate mothers who teach the pups to survive in the wild. The free verse language perfectly encapsulates the joy Odder feels when playing in water and the importance of saving otters. Newbery winner Applegate is a treasure. PBJ/SN Ages 8-12</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Applegate, Katherine, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The One and Only Ivan, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This Newbery winner is the story of Ivan, a silverback gorilla, and his animal friends in a broken-down mall circus. Ivan works to save the newest resident and teaches us about honor, art, compassion, and kindness. Kids adore this book. PBJ/SN Ages 8-12 (2012)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Hannah-Jones, Nikole and Watson, Renée, illustrated by Nickolas Smith, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The 1619 Project: Born on the Water </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">poignantly and proudly illustrates the origin story true for many Black Americans beginning in West Africa through the Middle Passage and enslavement to pride in resistance and accomplishments. The illustrations evoke the history, mood, and vibrancy of the words and incorporate West African scarification pattern motifs. PBJ/SN Ages 7-10 (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Haughton, Chris, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shh! We Have a Plan </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a laugh-out-loud, repetitive story that my then five-year-old grandson loved reading aloud. Three hunters ineptly attempt to capture a sleeping bird and hilarity ensues. PBJ Ages 3-7 (2014)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Kelly, Erin Entrada, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those Kids from Fawn Creek </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is another delight from the great Newbery winner. There are only twelve kids in the seventh grade at Fawn Creek and they’ve known each other all their lives. Nothing changes in their small Louisiana town until Orchid arrives. She’s lived in Paris and New York. What’s she doing in Fawn Creek? This novel exposes bullying and makes self-acceptance contagious. Buy it for someone you love. PBJ Ages 9-13</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Miller, Pat Zietlow, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be Kind </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">follows a child who doesn’t know how to help when a classmate spills grape juice on herself. Showing that giving and empathy can make a difference provides a way for kids to explore the topic. This award winner is a perfect classroom addition. PBJ Ages 3-6 (2018)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Perkins, Mitali, illustrated by Khoi Lee, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bare Tree and Little Wind: A Story for Holy Week </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a beautifully and authentically illustrated tale of a dying date tree and the “Quiet Man” celebrated with palm branches then hung on a cross. Little Wind protects the tree so it can birth seeds to spread far and wide. This is a measured and fresh interpretation of Holy Week. PBJ/SF Ages 3 - 8</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Warga, Jasmine, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Rover’s Story </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a sweet, comforting, clever, and informative story about Res, short for Resilience, a Mars rover, and the NASA scientists who built him. Res is truly resilient and he displays human emotions that make him care about Fly, the drone helicopter that accompanies him to Mars. This lovely, poignant tale offers both knowledge and a caring story. As always, Jasmine Warga writes just what kids need and want to read. She’s a treasure. PBJ/SN </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ages 8-13</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diet Coke and Gummi Bears - Books for Teens and Tweens including Young Adult Books</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cavallero, Brittany and Henry, Emily, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello Girls </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tells the tale of Winona, the daughter of a beloved local weatherman who physically assaults her, and her best friend Lucille, who is dirt poor. The two escape their small town in search of Winona’s mother who may be alive despite what they’ve been told. Teens may enjoy this “Thelma-and-Louise” style romp. I chose it because I like Emily Henry, but I believe it is more suited to adolescents. DC Ages 14 and up (2019)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Glock, Sophia, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Passport </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the true story of Sophia Glock’s transient childhood. Her parents were CIA officers and she went to high school in Central America where struggling to fit in was both unique to her situation and evocative of the universal teen experience. This graphic novel/memoir is gripping in its exploration of secrets, loyalty, and identity. DC/SN Ages 12 and up (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+Huerta, Lizz, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lost Dreamer</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a fantasy inspired by ancient Mesoamerican mythology. Indir, a Dreamer who dreams truth, and Saya, a seer whose mother portrays Saya’s gifts as her own, search for meaning and truth in the first in a planned duology. Older teens will enjoy Huerta’s world-building and be able to understand why there’s violence. DC Ages 14 and up</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">+McFall, Claire, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ferryman </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a fantasy romance tweens love. Originally published in Scotland in 2013, and recently published in the US, the love story is chaste and gentle. Dylan, a Glasgow teen dies in a train crash and enters a vast wasteland where wraiths try to capture her, but ferryman Tristan guides her to safety. Falling in love with Tristan is impossible or is it? The film starring Louis Partridge debuts soon. Carnegie medal nominee. DC Ages 12-16 (2021)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Sepetys, Ruta, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I Must Betray You </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">brings 1989 Romania and the cruelty of the Ceaușescu regime to life. Cristian is 17 and wants to be a writer but is forced to be an informant to save his family. Later he exposes the truth to the world and works for change with other youth. Brilliant! DC/PP/SN Ages 13 and up</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Smith, Tommie and Barnes, Derrick with illustrations by Dawud Anyabwile, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist for Justice, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a finalist for the National Book Award for Young Adults, this inspiring graphic novel/memoir shares the resilient childhood of 1968 Olympic medalist Tommie Smith and his focus on ways to fight against racial injustice in the United States. When he raised his fist on the Olympic podium in Mexico City, everyone saw it. Now teens and adults can learn more about this proud, religious, courageous man and the need to stand up for justice. The powerful illustrations portray his strength and help readers see the inequalities of the 1960s. DC/SF/SN, BC Ages 12 and up </span></p><p><br /></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-13889515386110488662022-11-20T11:11:00.003-06:002022-11-20T17:34:38.178-06:00Reconnecting by Kathleen Rooney<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUKXNy6Cc7uk2RdIaHF8c-ev7PlfO8BIkMACTBOhKeiXOiK9qtTNDr-G8vtcF5NSoI_F5akdacaPb7l1365uC8E1987Rfhr_vyxNjImnjnAj_1PUTxuXC4dP_sFuTHXuGLAlq7_DYArjMEFKvopyJA6LDf7YJIf74EhaDNQLVhjUUtwDuFFC1upwd/s1280/A3D637B3-891C-4517-B0CB-2925BD7622FF.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUKXNy6Cc7uk2RdIaHF8c-ev7PlfO8BIkMACTBOhKeiXOiK9qtTNDr-G8vtcF5NSoI_F5akdacaPb7l1365uC8E1987Rfhr_vyxNjImnjnAj_1PUTxuXC4dP_sFuTHXuGLAlq7_DYArjMEFKvopyJA6LDf7YJIf74EhaDNQLVhjUUtwDuFFC1upwd/s320/A3D637B3-891C-4517-B0CB-2925BD7622FF.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Kathleen Rooney, one of my favorite authors, shared this poem on her Facebook page this morning. It spoke to me so beautifully about our attempts at reconnecting that I asked her if I could share it with you. She wrote it at at a Poems While You Wait event earlier this fall. She and other poets set up manual typewriters in public spaces around Chicago and write on-demand poems for $5.00. The Chicago<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ae-poems-while-you-wait-0401-story.html"> Tribune</a> wrote about them in 2018.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Rooney is also the author of the delightful novels <i>Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk </i>and <i>Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. </i>I reviewed <a href="https://hungryforgoodbooks.blogspot.com/2017/03/lillian-boxfish-takes-walk-by-kathleen.html">Lillian</a> when it came out and <i>Cher Ami </i>was on my Best novels of 2020 list. If you haven’t read her, do. Learn more on her <a href="http://kathleenrooney.com/about/">website</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">May this poem spark joy in you as it has in me in the coming week when we try to practice thankfulness. For me, it’s all about paying attention and being thankful for moments of joy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We are indeed lucky to see us. Wishing you all a week of connection and community along with French bread and radishes and perhaps mashed potatoes and gravy and even pumpkin pie. </span></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-83640914921686575072022-10-11T10:18:00.001-05:002022-10-11T10:39:35.923-05:00The River You Touch by Chris Dombrowski<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXRx25o5xS19M0c9MRrUd163VOvsgCmFSNobmtHGeyDmNKO_iglNjaj33sfCX4A7OQ9DKQOpzwyy4omhezkX5I2XZT3Adw6D-yE4voaO5-vEz6ZaQSBv27iYfFGK9UoQace5Deu2RiOErSp-ZAT7YexleEMo7xULFXMsETJpZiLbGgSS-O8irUjBdC/s782/2F0CA8E5-94F7-434A-8785-EB2901BDC01A.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="782" data-original-width="506" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXRx25o5xS19M0c9MRrUd163VOvsgCmFSNobmtHGeyDmNKO_iglNjaj33sfCX4A7OQ9DKQOpzwyy4omhezkX5I2XZT3Adw6D-yE4voaO5-vEz6ZaQSBv27iYfFGK9UoQace5Deu2RiOErSp-ZAT7YexleEMo7xULFXMsETJpZiLbGgSS-O8irUjBdC/s320/2F0CA8E5-94F7-434A-8785-EB2901BDC01A.png" width="207" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The River You Touch: Making a Life on Moving Water by Chris Dombrowski is a poetic memoir of parenthood, rivers, and place that’s laced with a magical appreciation for this planet we inhabit. Set primarily in Montana where Dombrowski has long made a living and a life as a fishing guide and teacher, his book is an ode to loving the place we call home. It’s a love song to living “a mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet” in a world that’s moving away from nature and toward reliance on screens and devices. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dombrowski shares the quotidian details associated with living from paycheck to paycheck, the joys and miseries associated with being a parent, and the need to get out of oneself by going outside onto his beloved rivers or deep in the woods. He teaches us to fully enter Mary Oliver’s charge to “pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it” when he shares his attendance to detail and awe in what he observes every day as he lives life fully on the river and with his family and neighbors. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He depicts curmudgeon, seventy-five-year-old, “not-so-nimble” poet raconteur Jim Harrison in a drifter on the “beast that is Rock Creek in runoff. Even in average flows, the water’s steep pitch and boulder gardens make for arduous rowing and during high-water events, when deadfalls suddenly loosed from logjams can form new strainers and render previously cleared channels impassable, the River in aptly named a creek can take a boat in its teeth and refuse to let go.” Later, he asks Harrison’s friend Dan, who’d spelled him on the oars, how he’d become such a fine oarsman. “Got good quick,” he deadpanned. “Because I never learned to swim.” It’s Dombrowski’s ability to make seemingly effortless switches from lyrical descriptions to wry one-liners that make this book sing. Seldom does a book so gorgeously penned leave the reader almost whiplashed with changes in tone that keep us intrigued. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Dombrowski renders the technicolor scene of his toddler choking on a piece of apple, it brings back the fears and release of every parent particularly in the sentences after “Lily coughs once, gasps, and begins to cry; a loud and comforting cry, like the once just after birth. Good. Cry. Keep crying. Let us know you’re alive.” </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chris Dombrowski delivers the reader into his world and makes every detail a part of us. He does so when we’re on the river with him: “Slip of an oar blade, squeak of the oar locks. Water lapping at the hull.” He also captures us when we’re sharing bingo hour in Friendship Manor’s dining hall with his maternal grandmother Shirley. He does it again as he brings a bull trout “near enough to note a single roe-colored spot on its flank amongst countless white ones, a single planet, Mars, standing out from a sill of stars.” Chris Dombrowski takes us along on his journey and we’re better for that trek.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up: Read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The River You Touch </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to enter a way of living life with attention to every detail. Chris Dombrowski shares his love of life in Montana and in so doing he teaches the reader to love the people in the place they inhabit. His sharing of his journey as a fisherman, poet, teacher, husband, and father is an ebullient invitation into a life well lived. Not since Norman Maclean’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A River Runs Through It </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have I read such a powerful love letter to the American West.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note: I had the privilege of introducing Chris Dombrowski when he read from </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The River You Touch </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">at the Harbor Springs Festival of the Book and of hearing him on a panel with other esteemed writers. If you have the opportunity, listen to him in person. His wisdom is contagious.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 5 Stars </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: October 11, 2022</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Five Stars, Gourmet, Nonfiction, Soul Food, Book Club</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://www.cdombrowski.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.cdombrowski.com/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Foreword Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/the-river-you-touch/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/the-river-you-touch/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/chris-dombrowski/the-river-you-touch-dombrowski/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/chris-dombrowski/the-river-you-touch-dombrowski/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publishers Weekly: </span><a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781639550630" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781639550630</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“In the way a fable points us toward rightness, so The River You Touch leads us to a necessary truth: that deep knowledge and love of a place shapes us in all the ways we will need to survive. With poetry, vulnerability, and crisp storytelling, Dombrowski takes us into a wild, river-thrummed Montana, and into the stormswept territory of marriage and family. It’s a journey with a guide who knows the country at a cellular level, and whose bafflement and wonder renews our own. The magic of the book is that I came away convinced that learning to love a trout, or an autumn snowfall, or a wolf crossing a river, would teach me to love a friend or a partner in pain—and so to love and be connected to all beings. Damn.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Peter Heller, bestselling author of The Dog Stars, The River, and The Guide</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“With The River You Touch, Chris Dombrowski has established himself at the forefront of American writers of place. This beautiful, clear-eyed, tender memoir is as intimate as a love letter, brimming with wise observations on family, parenthood, home, duty, and passion. The Montana within these pages is wild and rugged, yes. But it is also as gentle as a cold stream running through your fingers or a child sleeping in your arms. I loved this book.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Nickolas Butler, bestselling author of Godspeed and Shotgun Lovesongs </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-70878690434212609082022-09-27T07:53:00.002-05:002022-09-27T08:43:20.132-05:00The Winners by Fredrik Backman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf442z8RyFbf0ZRRgu4iZHnTsY9k8l0viAejCFR21s3KG4qripYxruqPtLVMtGc3C6u05i3mT5FhxRxyH1K8En9Z1Uq08WsAeLk5yaxOW5OI3y2a8vWUqdULdcBmE5bSGVUuwr71A39Fzc14kvTgOJIru8dpGQRv0pTZTkc2jSc5hPuv5hpVEQJ8E8/s900/8274340F-83C3-4C18-8551-173F80D2C40F.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="593" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf442z8RyFbf0ZRRgu4iZHnTsY9k8l0viAejCFR21s3KG4qripYxruqPtLVMtGc3C6u05i3mT5FhxRxyH1K8En9Z1Uq08WsAeLk5yaxOW5OI3y2a8vWUqdULdcBmE5bSGVUuwr71A39Fzc14kvTgOJIru8dpGQRv0pTZTkc2jSc5hPuv5hpVEQJ8E8/s320/8274340F-83C3-4C18-8551-173F80D2C40F.jpeg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Out today is </span><i style="font-family: arial;">The Winners, </i><span style="font-family: arial;">the third book in Fredrik Backman’s acclaimed Beartown trilogy. This won’t be an extensive review because it’s impossible to describe the tale without spoilers. If you haven’t read </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Beartown </i><span style="font-family: arial;">or </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Us Against You, </i><span style="font-family: arial;">stop reading this review and read those magnificent stories. This is a true trilogy and you must read them in order. It’s been two a half years since the rape and other tragedies in Beartown. Beartown and Hed are rival Swedish hockey towns that detest each other. After the roof of Hed’s hockey rink collapses during a storm, the Hed team is sent to practice in Beartown and problems multiply. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Maya and Benji have returned to town and everyone is glad to see them but unsure about the consequences of their past issues. Amat is back after an injury and a failed attempt to make it in the NHL leaves him demoralized. Maya’s parents Peter and Kira are overwhelmed by an embezzlement scandal involving the Beartown club. Perhaps, most frightening is Matteo’s bitterness and desire for revenge after his older sister dies of an overdose. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">With so much trauma and violence, it may be up to the women to do something to change the culture before it’s too late. Some reviews found this book too long. I could have read more because I loved the side stories about each of the characters from the first two novels. Revenge, loyalty, friendship, identity, and forgiveness are themes in this novel that takes a slightly moralistic turn. For series fans that turn will be a welcome one.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Summing it Up: At 688 pages, <i>The Winners </i>is just long enough to wrap up the series and show how each of the characters has </span><span style="font-family: arial;">grown or changed. The “aha” moment is both surprising and believable and series fans will love the conclusion. Open the first page and fall under Backman’s spell.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Rating: 5 Stars </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Publication Date: September 27, 2022</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Book Club</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Author Website: <a href="https://fredrikbackmanbooks.com/index.html">https://fredrikbackmanbooks.com/index.html</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Reading Group Guide: <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Winners/Fredrik-Backman/Beartown-Series/9781982112790">https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Winners/Fredrik-Backman/Beartown-Series/9781982112790</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Kirkus Reviews: <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/fredrik-backman/the-winners/">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/fredrik-backman/the-winners/</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Publishers Weekly: <a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781982112790">http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781982112790</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-60211156943980410382022-09-19T06:12:00.000-05:002022-09-19T06:13:29.173-05:00Cora’s Kitchen by Kimberly Garrett Brown<p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3t_cDoHOjbl5Ni6x2NNJ7wbcDocT3wQNn-nlWRRKH3-Y2jDGDjEp26c1StKIQCcPdGfBt2jOt-94CT3WMDOSJ8toPf5RM1SxC6jiDHtnVrkKZ1dGnZxwe9bZB64cEdGNFi5qbyq0JEC3MMHPbvfD-LyYKJMAtOF9p-fuYb3vxo-5hUWXmicBI6aF/s750/8F1A50AA-5331-4D90-AF83-2C8F36DAB39C.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3t_cDoHOjbl5Ni6x2NNJ7wbcDocT3wQNn-nlWRRKH3-Y2jDGDjEp26c1StKIQCcPdGfBt2jOt-94CT3WMDOSJ8toPf5RM1SxC6jiDHtnVrkKZ1dGnZxwe9bZB64cEdGNFi5qbyq0JEC3MMHPbvfD-LyYKJMAtOF9p-fuYb3vxo-5hUWXmicBI6aF/s320/8F1A50AA-5331-4D90-AF83-2C8F36DAB39C.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Cora’s Kitchen <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Kimberly Garrett Brown is a stellar novel that embeds the reader in 1928 Harlem via fictional Black librarian Cora James who works at the 135th Street library where she meets patrons Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Cora wants to be a writer, but her job and her responsibilities caring for her family leave her little time to write. Despite the time constraints, Cora writes in her journal daily and those entries offer a view into her world. When she reads Hughes’s poem “Troubled Woman” she feels understood and writes to Hughes.</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I read one of your poems a few days ago and thought I would write you a letter. I hope you don’t mind.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The library has not been the same since you went away to school. There are still spirited discussions about race issues at the forums and new authors reading at the Booklover’s Club meetings, but no one talks about poetry, books or writing the way you and I did over the last year.”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hughes writes her back and encourages her writing. Still, Cora feels troubled and often can’t sleep. She envies the ease of her husband’s life: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “He goes to work, plays the music he loves, and comes home. The rest is left to me.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “What would life be like if I were a writer? Maybe I’d be like Zora Neale Hurston. She strides into the library with such fanfare and confidence. She’s not running around Harlem after a hard-headed 13-year-old.”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Cora’s aunt begs her to fill in for her daughter Agnes at her housekeeping job for a white family after Agnes is beaten by her husband and can’t work, Cora takes time off from the library to save her cousin’s job. She cooks, cleans, and takes care of the Fitzgerald family and finds that the work leaves her with time to write. Later, Mrs. Fitzgerald gives Cora Kate Chopin’s novel </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Awakening. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Cora reads it, she’s inspired to write about marriage and being a woman. When Mrs. Fitzgerald learns of Cora’s ambitions, she becomes Cora’s patron offering her time at a country estate where she can write. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Cora’s writing veers toward women’s struggles and she writes a story about a cardinal that focuses on the difficulties women, even those like her white patron, face, Langston Hughes reads it and tries to change her direction in a letter to her:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “Cora, you are a beautiful, smart black woman. Don’t lose that in your writing. Tell the story of the strength and perseverance that courses through your veins. Don’t strive to be a great writer. Be a great black writer.”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The response from Hughes confuses Cora, but a dramatic event intervenes and leads to a tragedy forcing Cora to re-examine her life. She remembers a passage in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Awakening: </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cora’s Kitchen </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">illuminates the life of one strong Black woman as it offers a universal portrait of every woman challenged by her dreams and a longing to be her true self. Reading </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cora’s Kitchen</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> will make you want to reread </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Awakening </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(or read it for the first time, if you haven’t read the classic). <i>Cora’s Kitchen </i>will make you feel how caring so much about your dream that you’re willing to risk everything will change you. It will also force you to think about developing your own strong wings. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up: Read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cora’s Kitchen </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to enter 1928 Harlem and the life of an educated Black woman who wants the life she deserves. Watch Cora’s growth as a writer as she confronts prejudice and cultural norms that work to drown her ambitions. Celebrate the words of debut author Kimberly Garrett Brown as she shows the power of a “troubled woman, bowed by weariness and pain, like an Autumn flower in the frozen rain.” </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Langston Hughes, “Troubled Woman” From </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Weary Blues </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(1926)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kudos to Val Fullard for the cover and its evocation of a strong Black woman in 1928.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finalist, 2018 William Faulkner - William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finalist, 2016 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: 5 Stars</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: September 20, 2022</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Categories: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Pigeon Pie, Super Nutrition, Book Club</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://kimberlygarrettbrown.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://kimberlygarrettbrown.com/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read an Excerpt: </span><a href="https://bloomsite.wordpress.com/2021/11/16/an-excerpt-from-kimberly-garrett-browns-debut-novel-coras-kitchen/?fbclid=IwAR3BzqoxEvzW8U055kgpVsX8E-noZ35x-YGKrqSy3A6wY-euXYZmB4GL7WE" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://bloomsite.wordpress.com/2021/11/16/an-excerpt-from-kimberly-garrett-browns-debut-novel-coras-kitchen/?fbclid=IwAR3BzqoxEvzW8U055kgpVsX8E-noZ35x-YGKrqSy3A6wY-euXYZmB4GL7WE</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Compulsive Reader: </span><a href="http://www.compulsivereader.com/2022/07/30/a-review-of-coras-kitchen-by-kimberly-garrett-brown/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.compulsivereader.com/2022/07/30/a-review-of-coras-kitchen-by-kimberly-garrett-brown/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kimberly-garrett-brown/coras-kitchen/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kimberly-garrett-brown/coras-kitchen/</span></a></p><div><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cora’s Kitchen delves deeply into what it means to be a Black woman with ambition, to make choices and keep secrets, and to have an unexpected alliance with a white woman that ultimately may save both of them. Kimberly Garrett Brown renders Cora with immense empathy, acknowledging and confronting Cora’s own prejudices and allegiances and the social pressures that continue to reverberate far beyond this story. Cora’s Kitchen is a poignant, compelling story in which misfortune and fortune cannot be teased apart, and literature and life have everything to do with each other.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Anna Leahy, author of What Happened Was: and Tumor</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It has been said, the universal is found in the specific, and in Cora’s Kitchen, all women will find their challenges and longings expressed with unflinching honesty. Kimberly Garrett Brown’s characters are faithful to a time, yet timeless, transcending the years to both painfully and beautifully illustrate the struggles women face to find and fulfill their vocations. Spellbinding.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Erika Robuck, national bestselling author of The Invisible Woman</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-20774711697337145932022-09-10T07:53:00.018-05:002022-09-20T05:35:59.979-05:00Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-928dc4cb-7fff-d3e4-b9fc-8f3b86eaa004" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirUM5Hbyo8Dg8WFNxXgrJ2oBa9PyWrl2TKD51wfcfzgXVcWCG9xnBxWSeMmRT_eXWf2f5YH0-1Epl2K2a1IvG6PtmNTXJt63PJJ4z5NysVulyr7y_TNhJxPRyE08hLwLXxpOXaBfW2Q032I9D8KuZDTFmkJf8W9a-mQ8U53cIdqphs9oYqAvJnqnH9/s450/7BB09893-BD69-4F03-A627-6FA9934B147C.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="298" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirUM5Hbyo8Dg8WFNxXgrJ2oBa9PyWrl2TKD51wfcfzgXVcWCG9xnBxWSeMmRT_eXWf2f5YH0-1Epl2K2a1IvG6PtmNTXJt63PJJ4z5NysVulyr7y_TNhJxPRyE08hLwLXxpOXaBfW2Q032I9D8KuZDTFmkJf8W9a-mQ8U53cIdqphs9oYqAvJnqnH9/s320/7BB09893-BD69-4F03-A627-6FA9934B147C.jpeg" width="212" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-928dc4cb-7fff-d3e4-b9fc-8f3b86eaa004" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucy by the Sea </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout’s latest entry in the Lucy Barton Amagash series after last year’s phenomenal Booker nominee </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh William! </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a stand-alone novel, but I recommend reading </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My Name is Lucy Barton, Anything is Possible, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh William! </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to fully understand the characters in this character-driven novel. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s March 2020, and Lucy’s ex-husband William, a scientist, feels that the new virus will be serious, so he begs Lucy to leave New York City. His friend Bob Burgess, who was a marvelous character in Strout’s 2013 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Burgess Boys,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> returns and offers Willam an empty home on the ocean in Burgess’s rural Maine village. Lucy doesn’t think they’ll be gone long and she packs only a small suitcase and doesn’t plan to take her laptop. William insists that acclaimed author Lucy needs her laptop, but she doesn’t see the need and William takes it. Later, that proves important to her story. Their fourteen-day quarantine grows longer and Lucy can’t stand the cold, the lack of green vegetation (having left New York when daffodils were beginning to bloom), and the isolation of having no one but William and occasionally Bob Burgess to talk with outside in the wind and cold. Lucy grew up in deep poverty and being cold is both a physical and an emotional deprivation that wounds her. As the weather improves, she begins walking more and also volunteers at a local outdoor food pantry where she begins to meet some of the townspeople. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I read Lucy’s ruminations, I felt she was recreating what was inside my head and heart, especially in that first year of the pandemic. She perfectly captured the feelings so many of us had when we couldn’t concentrate, were afraid for our children, suffered from an inability to sleep or relax, and had difficulties understanding how those who didn’t share our opinions were acting. That she also captured some of the coping mechanisms we used, makes this novel a gift instead of a lament. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Lucy realizes how much many of the townspeople resent those who’ve decamped there from cities, she begins to understand the deep divide our country was experiencing. Because she received a scholarship and attended college unlike the rest of her family and most of those in her hometown, she understood that she now had the means to live safely by the sea while others were losing their jobs or dying.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When rioters breached the Capitol on January 6, 2020, Lucy pondered, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What if all the jobs I had taken in my life were not enough to really make a living, what if I felt looked down upon </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all the time </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by the wealthier people in this country, who made fun of me and my religion and guns. I did not have religion and I did not have guns, but suddenly I felt that I saw what these people were feeling; they were like my sister Vicky, and I understood them. They had been made to feel poorly about themselves, they were looked at with disdain, and they could no longer stand it.” </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While volunteering at the food pantry, Lucy became friends with Charlene, a younger woman who worked as an apartment cleaner. She began walking with her occasionally. Several months later, Lucy and Charlene were sitting outside and Charlene said, “I’m not going to work at the food pantry anymore.”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Why?” I asked.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well,” she tugged her coat closer to her and said, “When the vaccines come out—and they’re coming—I’m not going to get one, and so I won’t be able to work there.”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“They told you that?”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yup.” Charlene picked at one eye with a gloved hand.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I almost said, why won’t you get a vaccine? But I did not say that, and she did not tell me why.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m sorry,” I said, and she said, “Thanks.”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We sat there in the quiet, and then she said, “Well, let’s get walking.”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucy by the Sea</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a book with themes and lessons that keep nudging my soul telling me to be quiet and listen without trying to fix or explain. It’s a novel I read in less than a day. I plan to return to explore it often. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up: Read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucy by the Sea</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to explore the Covid world we all encountered. Fall into it to ruminate on what most of us have yet to fathom about how we changed, stagnated, became embittered, worried, and learned or didn’t learn to accept that our world was a different place. Experience the depth and humanity of the brilliant characters Elizabeth Strout creates and be grateful to live when those characters periodically reappear in fresh new novels to entertain and comfort us. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: Five Stars</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: September 20, 2022</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Gourmet, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Book Club</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: <a href="https://www.elizabethstrout.com/">https://www.elizabethstrout.com/</a></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read an Excerpt: </span><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/706911/lucy-by-the-sea-by-elizabeth-strout/">https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/706911/lucy-by-the-sea-by-elizabeth-strout/</a></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying: </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/elizabeth-strout/lucy-by-the-sea/" style="text-decoration: none;">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/elizabeth-strout/lucy-by-the-sea/</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The New York Times: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/books/review/lucy-by-the-sea-lucy-barton.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/books/review/lucy-by-the-sea-lucy-barton.html</a> </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publishers Weekly: </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780593446065" style="text-decoration: none;">https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780593446065</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Star Tribune:</span> <a href="https://www.startribune.com/review-lucy-by-the-sea-by-elizabeth-strout/600207451/">https://www.startribune.com/review-lucy-by-the-sea-by-elizabeth-strout/600207451/</a></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p> </p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179986574163596400.post-90344423165486689722022-09-06T08:10:00.001-05:002022-09-06T11:15:28.073-05:00The Two Lives of Sara by Catherine Adel West<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-3c2e93e5-7fff-6d79-5414-2bc30e839e4e" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY9kw8BN1GWh9VgQe9hAHewqp-mhGjlgeFy86LOw6IFbB-HcTj5b7nuq5T4014YK5CUdqrZfZnwiU_Zy68kdLJawIE_PjM7zE1094Yk9Gcwk8JeBuEVkU5dPHyyBF6N13YxGSZHHh_NYxq6rX1Loq9gmViWMhy-5UGSixzgGQscD365ludolK9BoTR/s3724/9B3DC2E2-916F-4053-8917-0FD7B3883D65.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3724" data-original-width="2458" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY9kw8BN1GWh9VgQe9hAHewqp-mhGjlgeFy86LOw6IFbB-HcTj5b7nuq5T4014YK5CUdqrZfZnwiU_Zy68kdLJawIE_PjM7zE1094Yk9Gcwk8JeBuEVkU5dPHyyBF6N13YxGSZHHh_NYxq6rX1Loq9gmViWMhy-5UGSixzgGQscD365ludolK9BoTR/s320/9B3DC2E2-916F-4053-8917-0FD7B3883D65.jpeg" width="211" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-3c2e93e5-7fff-6d79-5414-2bc30e839e4e" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Two Lives of Sara </i>by Catherine Adel West begins when Sara takes the bus to Memphis to escape life in Chicago after her father’s death. She’s young, single, and pregnant so Mama Sugar, Sara’s close friend Naomi’s aunt and the proprietor of The Scarlet Poplar rooming house, a haven in Memphis’s Black community welcomes Sara as a cook and helps her when her son Lebanon is born.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">West’s debut novel </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saving Ruby King </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was one of my favorite books of 2020 and I love learning Lebanon’s and Sara’s backstories. Those who’ve read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saving Ruby King </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will enjoy finding out more about the character Sara’s early life. Usually, when a prequel arrives, I suggest reading it first, but in this case, I’m glad I read about Ruby first. I enjoyed learning about Ruby for herself then reading about Sara and learning more about why she acted as she did. There’s a whole lot of hurt in both novels, but they also offer the beauty of community, friendship, and love. Whichever one you choose to read first will inform the other. Each novel stands alone and both beg you to discuss with a book club or on a walk with a friend.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Two Lives of Sara, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sara tries to close herself off from emotional entanglements since she’s been hurt deeply by childhood trauma and the assault that resulted in her son’s birth. It’s even difficult for her to hold Lebanon since he reminds her of her past. Mama Sugar and her family and friends treat Lebanon and Sara with loving kindness and soon Sara begins to respond.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I scoop Lebanon up from the high chair and set him on my lap and the crying stops. . . .</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“See, when you patient and happy. He’s patient and happy like that, Sara-girl,” says Mama Sugar.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s odd to feel something resembling happiness looking at him. And he lays his head on my shoulder. Yes. He has my nose and lips. He dozes. Curly hair tickles my neck. He doesn’t seem heavy, at least not as heavy as he did other mornings.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soon the heaviness of her earlier life and its burdens start to lift from Sara’s shoulders and she befriends Mama Sugar’s bookish grandson William. Through their connection, she falls in love with Jonas, William’s challenging teacher. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The community welcomes Sara and Lebanon and Sara wants more. “Friendships are strange evolving collections of laughter and fights and secrets, this rarified brew of humanity you choose to share with another person. And I want that again. To feel close to someone. To share with someone. The way I did in Chicago.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Will her desires be enough to overcome the hurt of the church when Black life in Memphis is so tied to the church? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I believed when I was young, when I walked past my church’s doors, nothing could hurt me, but that was a silly, childish notion, to let a building, a church, make me feel safe. . . . all I see is Calvary Hope Christian Church, a place that saw the best and worst of who I was, the best and worst of everyone that walked through its doors.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Throughout it all, the music, the food, the traditions of HBCU schools like Morehouse and Spelman, and the difficulties of being Black in Memphis in the early 1960s make this novel sing with authenticity. When Jonas and Sara stop at a Memphis housing project, Sara says, “Use to think we had it better up North. You know we got a housing project named after Ida B. Wells? She spent her whole life fighting injustice, and they slapped her name on a building that keeps it going.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“White people build these places to keep us and them separate. Put the names of our people on them like they’ve done us a service. It’s disgraceful,” says Jonas.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What happens next is Sara’s story to tell and is a poignant, heartfelt tale of resilience when love may not be enough. It demonstrates that Catherine Adel West is no one-hit-wonder. This reader will be anxiously awaiting her next effort.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summing it Up: Read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Two Loves of Sara </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to immerse yourself in the food, music, church traditions, and camaraderie of early 1960s Black Memphis. Relish the complexity of every character in the novel from wounded, yet strong Sara to those who make poor decisions and men and women who encourage others to survive and thrive. Select </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Two Lives of Sara </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for your <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-two-lives-of-sara-catherine-adel-west">book club</a> for a discussion that will practically lead itself. This novel of love, trauma, resiliency, religion, and prejudice is both a page-turner and a novel you’ll long contemplate.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rating: Five Stars</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Date: September 6, 2022</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Categories: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Grits, Pigeon Pie, Super Nutrition, Book Club</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Website: </span><a href="https://www.catherineadelwest.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.catherineadelwest.com/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Book Club Discussion Kit: </span><a href="https://www.catherineadelwest.com/uploads/1/3/1/4/131492292/two_lives_of_sara_book_club_kit.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.catherineadelwest.com/uploads/1/3/1/4/131492292/two_lives_of_sara_book_club_kit.pdf</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (I’ve led hundreds of book discussions and this is the most complete, beautiful, and inspiring book club kit I’ve seen. It begs you to select the book for your book club.)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read an Excerpt: </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://preview.aer.io/The_Two_Lives_of_Sara-NDQ5MTA3?social=1&retail=1&emailcap=0" style="text-decoration: none;">https://preview.aer.io/The_Two_Lives_of_Sara-NDQ5MTA3?social=1&retail=1&emailcap=0</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author Interview: </span><a href="https://www.shelf-awareness.com/max-issue.html?issue=476#m991" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.shelf-awareness.com/max-issue.html?issue=476#m991</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Others are Saying:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Booklist: “West writes with charming precision and intention. Every character is a beautiful, relatable complication. Both masterfully suspenseful and certain to tug at the reader's heartstrings, The Two Lives of Sara solidifies West as a literary force.” --Booklist (Starred Review)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirkus Reviews: </span><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/catherine-adel-west/the-two-lives-of-sara/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/catherine-adel-west/the-two-lives-of-sara/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A gripping reflection on our need to be loved and our fear of rejection, Catherine Adel West crafts a timeless and complex narrative of family, loss, and what it means to lose faith in religion and ourselves. Sara King and the family she finds at the Scarlet Poplar will stay with you long after the final page.” —Lane Clarke, author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love Times Infinity</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"The Two Lives of Sara is a stellar follow-up for Catherine Adel West. The relationships surrounding Sara King are nuanced, complex, and full of small moments that stick with you long after you are done. West has a direct and precise prose that goes straight to the heart of the characters, the story, and the reader." --Morg Rogers, author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honey Girl</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p>Trina Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06675384730931649760noreply@blogger.com0