The Nanny by Gilly MacMillan

August 31, 2019

The Nanny by Gilly MacMillan

When Jocelyn Holt was seven years old, her beloved nanny left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye.  When she asked where Nanny Hannah had gone, her mother blamed Jocelyn for the nanny's departure, saying that she was a terrible child and the nanny couldn't stand her anymore.  With her parents spending most of their time in London, the little girl was soon shipped off to boarding school, and she never forgave her parents' for her loveless childhood.  Thirty years later, Jo is widowed and forced to return to her family's estate in rural England with her daughter, Ruby.  While Jo and Ruby are boating on the lake, they find a human skull in the water.  Jo suspects it may be Hannah, but if it is, who put it there?  And if it's not Hannah, who is it?

I enjoyed this very much.  Nannies are popular fictional characters because they are outsiders who are invited into the home to share intimate space with the family.  Fictional nannies can be wonderful (like Mary Poppins) or they can be psychopaths.  I usually don't read "nanny" books (The Perfect Nanny, Woman No. 17, The Au Pair) because the nannies all tend to be troubled women out for revenge, but this one appealed to me because it was about a missing person at an English country home that might be a cold case.  

The Nanny includes many of the themes that make psychological fiction so great:  family secrets, false identity, tense relations between the family and the locals, missing or false memories, illegal business dealings.  With interesting characters and fast pacing, this is a great reading choice for vacation or a long weekend.

Many thanks to NetGally and the publisher for an e-ARC in return for a review.

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

August 29, 2019

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

The year is 1932.  The Lincoln Indian Training School in Lincoln, Minnesota, is a school where hundreds of Native American children who had been taken away from their families are sent to forget their Native American languages and customs and learn to be “white.”  Children who spoke their own languages were beaten and put into solitary confinement until they learned to conform.  Thelma Brickman is the school superintendent and runs the school strictly for her own gain, stealing money, food, and gifts intended for the students.  She is cruel to all the children, but especially to the two orphaned O’Banion brothers, the only white children in the school.  After an evil groundskeeper at the school is killed, the brothers are forced to flee down the river, along with two of their friends.

I was hesitant at first to read this at first due to the subject matter (child abuse, cruelty to children, mistreatment of Native Americans), but it is so INCREDIBLY good!  It's almost 500 pages long, and I read it in three days.  I could not put it down since I had to find out what happened to Odie and his friends (one of my bad habits is reading when I should be cleaning or paying attention to the dogs).  The characters are all wonderful, even Faria the rat who lives in the school's solitary confinement cell.  Easily one of the best books that I'll read in 2019, and I cried when it ended partly because the whole story is so beautiful, and partly because it was over.  IMHO, much better than Where the Crawdads Sing.

This Tender Land will be published on September 3, 2019.  Go pre-order it from Amazon or get on the hold list at your local library.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in return for a review.

Tiger Shrimp Tango by Tim Dorsey

August 28, 2019

Tiger Shrimp Tango by Tim Dorsey

After watching "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective," Florida-phile Serge A. Storms and his druggie sidekick Coleman decide to become private investigators.  They team up with Mahoney, a noir-ish P.I. who specializes in assisting victims of Internet scams, because of course, Florida is the capitol of scam-dom.  When one of Mahoney's clients, an innocent woman named Brooke, is robbed by scammers on the day of her father's funeral (who was himself scammed by those people pretending to be from the IRS), Serge swings into action and dishes out his own brand of Serge-justice to scammers in need of learning how to be nice to other people.  All while taking in the myriad sights of Florida.

This isn't the strongest title in the series, but it is still has a lot of humor, as well as some creative and gruesome executions - Serge's knowledge and use of science is pretty awesome.  Many of the characters from previous titles in the series reappear in this one, including Johnny Vegas, the Accidental Virgin.  Serge is a lovable psychopath who lives by his own strange code of ethics like any good detective (although unlike most noir detectives, Serge does score with the ladies and is highly resourceful when in need of some fast money).  Coleman is along for the ride, always high, and sometimes spouts unexpected wisdom.  Mahoney is a riot - he talks like a detective right out of Mickey Spillane or Raymond Chandler using tough-guy slang that is largely unintelligible, and he refers to himself in the third person.  Tim Dorsey's series is a refreshing change of pace, like mental sorbet when you've been reading too much literary or historical fiction.  Oliver Wyman reads the audio version and does a great job.

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

August 23, 2019

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

The words secretary and secret have the same Latin root.  The women who work as secretaries for the CIA are expected to prepare necessary documents and immediately forget what they have typed.

At the height of the Cold War, Irina is hired by the CIA as a secretary.  But it isn't her secretarial skills that the agency is interested in - they are far more interested in her Russian background and ability to blend in without attracting attention.  Sally Forrester, a long-time operative, trains Irina on how to dress, how to act, how to perform a switch without anyone noticing.  At first, Irina works as a courier, picking up and dropping off information and documents.  One of her most important assignments is to meet a British agent and pick up two rolls of microfilm that contain the Russian text for the novel Dr. Zhivago, which has been smuggled out of Soviet Russia.

At his dacha outside Moscow, Boris Pasternak has completed one of the greatest novels ever written, yet he is unable to obtain permission to have the text published in the Soviet Union.  The Communist government feels that since the story is set against the backdrop of the 1918 Russian Revolution, it is critical of the Soviet government.  Pasternak makes the momentous decision to smuggle the text out of Russia to Western Europe, where it will be translated and published to world-wide acclaim.  But Pasternak's decision has dire consequences for himself and his lover Olga (the inspiration for Lara).

Dr. Zhivago has always been one of my favorite novels, so I was fascinated by the background on how it came to be published.  I knew that Pasternak had been awarded the Nobel Prize for the novel, but I had no idea about the controversy that ensued.  Well-researched and vibrantly told, The Secrets We Kept will appeal to readers of historical fiction as well as anyone interested in Soviet Russia during the Cold War, Boris Pasternak, or a legendary literary love story.

Boris Pasternak - very brooding Russian look

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in return for a review.

Tell Me Everything by Cambria Brockman

August 22, 2019

Tell Me Everything by Cambria Brockman

Hawthorne College is a small liberal arts college in Maine, known as a mini-Ivy, catering to students from wealthy families who can't get into real Ivy League colleges due to poor grades or lack of connections.  Six students meet during freshman orientation and quickly become a tight group:

• Malin is a pre-law major from a wealthy Texas family, who tends to be a loner but tries hard to make friends and fit in;
• John is the athletic golden boy, wealthy, popular and sought after, who wants to major in finance and partying, studying as little as possible;
• Ruby is attending Hawthorne on a soccer scholarship and plans to study art history - she is the prettiest and most popular girl in the group;
• Max is John's cousin, handsome and intense, who suffers from panic attacks even though he comes from a wealthy loving family - he plans to study pre-med and become a surgeon;
• Gemma is from London and mixed race, the daughter of an American woman and a Pakistani diplomat, a theater major since she has a natural flair for drama - she is very insecure and infatuated with John, even though John and Ruby become a couple almost immediately; and
• Khaled, aka the prince, from extremely wealthy Abu Dhabi royalty, also planning on majoring in pre-med - he uses his wealth to draw the others close to him.

The six of them live together in a house that Khaled owns near the campus and are inseparable until their senior year, when cracks begin to appear.  By the annual Senior Day celebrations, they are slowly falling apart.  Secrets that have been carefully hidden come to light, threatening their futures and their friendships.

This was great summer reading, character driven but with a fast moving story line and good writing.  Will appeal to readers who enjoyed The Secret History by Donna Tartt or One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus.

In the Name of the Family by Sarah Dunant

August 20, 2019

In the Name of the Family by Sarah Dunant

Before there were the Sopranos and the Lannisters, there were the Borgias, the original family syndicate.  Pope Alexander VI (formerly Rodrigo Borgia:  womanizer, businessman, politician) is returning from taking his daughter Lucrezia to marry her third husband in Ferrara (she's 22 years old and on husband #3).  His son Cesare (also known as Duke Valentine) was the basis for the prince described by Niccolo Machiavelli in his political treatise The Prince.  Although Cesare was generally considered to be a decent ruler, he was also mentally unstable at times and ordered the murder of Lucrezia’s second husband for political reasons.  Although she resents being used as a political pawn by her family, Lucrezia fulfills her duty for the Borgia clan and sets out to charm her new husband’s family and the court and produce the necessary heirs.

Entertaining and overall historically accurate, like “Lifestyles of the Renaissance Rich and Famous” or “Bedroom Secrets of the Borgias.”  The characters are fully fleshed, ruthless, cruel, loyal to the family.  The narrative is told predominantly from three alternating viewpoints (Pope Alexander, Cesare, and Lucrezia), with Machiavelli occasionally chiming in to comment on Borgia politics.  This title is the sequel to Blood and Beauty by the same author.

The Oysterville Sewing Circle by Susan Wiggs

August 18, 2019

The Oysterville Sewing Circle by Susan Wiggs

Caroline Shelby always loved to sew and dreamed of being a fashion designer.  But in the cut-throat world of New York fashion, she is betrayed by her mentor who destroys her budding career.  When a close friend dies of an overdose, Caroline returns to her hometown and her family in Oysterville, WA, bringing her friend’s two orphaned children with her.  With her new responsibilities, she needs to start over and make a life for the three of them.  Caroline is certain that the scandal and shame she feels is the worst thing that could happen to anyone, but she quickly learns that many of the women she meets have secrets of their own.  Her evolution is eased by renewing her relationship with Will Jensen, a long-time friend.

I requested an e-ARC for this title since I am an avid sewer, but the “sewing circle” turned out to be a domestic abuse support group.  Some sewing happens but it's sort of a side plot.  The topic of domestic abuse and violence is hugely important and pulled right from the headlines.  Too many influential men have been permitted to bully and abuse women and children, their actions hidden by their positions.  My dad always said that it doesn't take a brave man to hit a woman, a child or a dog - to him, men like that were despicable.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of women’s fiction (a little too predictable), but Susan Wiggs is a popular women's fiction writer, and readers of both women’s fiction and romance should enjoy this title.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for a review.

The Burning Issue of the Day by T. E. Kinsey

August 15, 2019

The Burning Issue of the Day by T. E. Kinsey

When a young suffragette is accused of arson and murder, Lady Hardcastle and her faithful maid/companion Florence Armstrong are asked to investigate by one of her fellow suffragettes.  Working with Miss Dinah Caudle, their adversary in the previous title in the series, they uncover not just a plot to frame the suffragette, but a much larger plot to steal a shipment of South American gold.

I really enjoy the Lady Hardcastle/Florence Armstrong mysteries!  If you are a frequent reader of mysteries (especially cozy mysteries), the plot becomes fairly obvious about 2/3 of the way through the book.  But these are mysteries that you read for the characters and the dialogue, not an intricately formulated plot.  With each new book in the series, the reader learns more about Lady Hardcastle and Flo's backgrounds.  The only disappointment was that the Farley-Strouds appear only once - I do like Lady H.'s eccentric neighbors.

Another good thing about the series is author T. E. Kinsey's attention to historical detail, as noted in the afterword.  There really was a chapter of the WSPU in Bristol in 1910; there is a difference between suffragists and suffragettes; even the key to the cipher in the text is explained. 

This is a series that should really be read in order, beginning with the first title in the series, A Quiet Life in the Country.  The next title is due to be released in October 2019.

Inland by Tea Obreht

August 14, 2019

Inland by Tea Obreht

Orphaned at a young age and wanted for murder in Missouri Territory in 1856, Lurie stumbles upon a shipment of camels being brought to Arizona Territory by the U.S. Army intending to test their use as pack animals in desert areas.  He becomes a cameleer, forming a bond with one particular camel he calls Burke.  Forty years later, Nora Lark and her family are living in the middle of a drought in Arizona Territory.  Nora’s husband, who runs the local newspaper, left the ranch eight days earlier in search of water and hasn’t been heard from since.  Her older sons have gone off to find their father, leaving Nora alone at the ranch with her youngest son, her invalid mother-in-law, and her husband’s cousin who holds seances – even the homestead dogs have disappeared.  Their stories finally intersect in an unexpected way.  Recommended for readers who enjoyed Toni Morrison’s Beloved or Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Tea Obreht writes lush, beautiful prose, and I had been looking forward to reading Inland, but the pace is really slow, plus there are many characters and it takes quite a while to get into the story.  Told from two viewpoints (Lurie and Nora), their stories don’t intersect until the last quarter of the book.  Lurie’s story is fairly linear and contains a good amount of action, while Nora’s story is more stagnant but jumps around a lot in time.  There is a feeling of dread that underlies the text, like the oppressive heat and drought in the Arizona desert.  A number of characters in the book are communicating with the dead or might be dead themselves (not sure how much this element adds to the story).  Certain aspects of the plot come together very late in the last quarter of the book, when a character that has been mentioned frequently (essentially the town bogeyman) finally appears and explains or confirms what has been hinted at throughout the book.  The ending felt rushed, with Nora foreseeing the future after taking a drink of “magic” water.  While other readers may have enjoyed Inland, I was disappointed.

When Maidens Mourn by C. S. Harris

August 10, 2019

When Maidens Mourn by C. S. Harris

London, 1812:  Sebastian St. Cyr, Lord Devlin, has been married for four days to Hero, daughter of his enemy Lord Jarvis.  Their plans to escape the heat of August in London are stalled when they receive news that one of Hero’s close friends has been found murdered.  To make matters worse, the dead woman’s two young cousins who were staying with her are missing.  Sir Henry Lovejoy once again enlists Lord Devlin to assist in the investigation, since Sebastian can gain access to high society whose doors would be shut in Lovejoy’s face.

The Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series is great fun and provides an in-depth look into life among the upper classes in Regency England.  The stories are a good blend of historical fact and fiction, well-researched with fast-paced plots and plenty of adventure.  With each entry in the series, we get a little more information about Sebastian’s mysterious parentage and Hero’s relationship with her powerful father.  (I used to think the chicks in Regency novels spent a lot of time changing their clothes, but then on laundry day when I'm faced with a mountain of laundry, I wonder if I'm more like them than I think.)

I highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys a well-written historical mystery.

Chase Darkness With Me by Billy Jensen

August 8, 2019

Chase Darkness With Me by Billy Jensen

They call themselves citizen detectives.  Some are journalists; others are librarians or scientists or researchers; still others are retired or former law enforcement officers.  Their goal is to investigate criminal cases that have gone cold, to get justice for the victims and bring peace to the families. Some work on unsolved murder cases, others look for missing persons and what happened to them.  Some work alone and others form "murder clubs" where they work together using their various skills.  They wade through clues and conflicting reports, trying to establish a chronology for each case.  They use crowdsourcing and geo-targeted social media campaigns, spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars of their own money.

For decades, Billy Jensen had been a true crime writer, writing about unsolved murder and missing person cases.  But he found his writing to be unsatisfying, since the stories didn't have an ending or a solution.  So he began to research and study unsolved cases himself, solving ten cold cases and generating leads on dozens more.  When his close friend Michelle McNamara passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, her husband and Jensen were determined to bring Michelle's unfinished book about the Golden State Killer, I'll Be Gone in the Dark, to publication.  Although her book didn't solve the case, it kept the Golden State Killer in the public's eye so that police were able to identify and arrest the serial killer.

I have always been interested in true crime, especially missing persons cases.  When I retire, this is something I would like to do, join a crime solving group to try to bring closure to the families and friends of missing loved ones.  There are about 40,000 sets of unidentified human remains in the U.S. - I want to restore the names to those missing loved ones.

Semper Fidelis by Ruth Downie

August 6, 2019

Semper Fidelis by Ruth Downie

After his stint as an investigator, Ruso has re-enlisted in the Roman army as a medical officer (medicus).  With the impending visit of the emperor, the town of Deva is in an uproar.  To escape the noise and politics, Ruso devises a tour for himself to inspect the medical facilities at the various distant army outposts where the 20th Roman Legion will stop.  His native-born British wife Tilla, a skilled midwife, accompanies him.  But as soon as they arrive at their first stop (in what is the modern city of York), a young recruit commits suicide by jumping off a roof.  When Ruso inspects the infirmary, he discovers that there have been a number of other suspicious deaths and injuries in the regiment.

Despite Ruso’s best plans, a storm blows the emperor’s flotilla off course, and the emperor and his entourage land near the outpost rather than in Deva.  He and Tilla get to experience the full force of the imperial visit, while trying to prove that a brutal officer is responsible for the recruits’ deaths and save themselves at the same time.

Well-researched as are all the books in this series, this title isn’t as strong as the previous four books. The first half of the book is a long set up for the last half, where the mystery actually starts.  I hope this is just a glitz in the series, since I really enjoy Ruso and Tilla's adventures.

The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

August 5, 2019

The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

As a young man, Claude Ballard was fascinated by moving pictures and takes a job as a representative for the Lumiere brothers, demonstrating and selling their cinematic equipment.  He went on to direct silent films and unexpectedly stopped after making his greatest film, "The Electric Hotel."  But the film is controversial, and he faces a legal challenge from Thomas Edison, who has patented the process of motion pictures and wants to be the sole creator and distributor (who knew Edison was such a bully?). 

Claude becomes reclusive, living at the shabby Knickerbocker Hotel in Los Angeles, his room filled with containers of decaying film, photographing people on the street and foraging the hills for mushrooms and herbs.  When a film student asks to interview him and discuss his lost masterpiece for his thesis, Claude admits that in fact he has a copy of the film, and it isn't lost at all.  He is forced to re-live his career and his relationship with his muse Sabine Montrose, his life unspooling like a reel of film.  While "The Electric Hotel" is considered to be his masterpiece, Claude eventually reveals the film that he considers to be his greatest work.

In many ways, The Electric Hotel is an interesting read, spanning about 70 years and filled with information about the early days of motion pictures.  But the pacing is slow and the story drags through the painful process of making a silent film.  Many of the characters were detached and distant - the stuntman Chip was the best character in the book.  I stopped halfway through and read a couple of other books, then went back to this one.  I'm glad I did, since the last hundred pages make up for the first two hundred pages.  But unless you are really into cinematic history, I wouldn't recommend this one.

The Best Polish Restaurant in Buffalo by William Kowalski

August 3, 2019

The Best Polish Restaurant in Buffalo by William Kowalski

It’s August, and I needed something a little lighter to read.  This isn't high literature but it's a pleasant read, a family saga based loosely on the author's great-grandmother's life.  Aniela is a Polish farm girl who emigrates to the United States with her mother and sisters, to escape from her brutal father and brothers.  The exact type of abuse isn't stated, but there is a hint of sexual and physical abuse in addition to the women being treated like slaves.  Despite how hard she worked, Aniela loved her life in her small Polish town.  Her mother decides that they will settle in Buffalo, New York, since there is a large Polish community, and it's also smaller and less intimidating that Chicago, the other American city with a large Polish population.

Arriving in Buffalo, the four women find jobs through the Polish community, working hard to create a new life for themselves.  They are employed as house cleaners and laundresses, learning English, finding a place in their new community.  The work is hard, but they all worked hard in Poland, and they are paid fairly for their work and able to save for a house.

Their mother's most important possession is a crock of sourdough starter that she brings with her from Poland.  Aniela and her sisters continue to use and feed the starter, eventually starting their own bakery where they sell authentic Polish sourdough bread and rolls.  The bakery morphs into a famous Polish restaurant that supports the family for decades, until it fails and has to be sold, due to changes in the city's population, and food trends and tastes.

Although the story was interesting, it was disappointing in parts.  The author doesn't describe how the sisters' little bakery evolves into a restaurant (it would have been more interesting to hear about how the restaurant started and flourished through the years, rather than detailing Iggy's wife's sordid affair).  At the end of the book, the story just sort of stops, with Iggy's life in shambles:  the restaurant closes and his livelihood is gone; he is going to have to split the proceeds from the sale of the restaurant with his many cousins; he and his wife have split up and he has moved out.  There is a glimmer of hope that he will be able to start over, since the original sourdough starter has survived all these years, and so will Iggy.

Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson

August 1, 2019

Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson

This is a story about games and people who play them, especially about the worst thing you've ever done (and more than one character has a dark secret).

Amy Whey is living a quiet orderly life and she likes it that way.  She has her husband Davis, her stepdaughter Madison, and baby son Oliver.  Her career as a diving instructor is currently on hold since the birth of her son, but she looks forward to going back to it soon.  About the most exciting thing she does is host her friend Charlotte’s neighborhood mommy book club, which focuses on classical literature and 19^th century comedies of manners.  That is, until a new neighbor named Roux moves in and takes over the book club, insisting that they play a game similar to the high school game of Never Have I Ever.  But the game seems to be specifically aimed at Amy, and Roux hints that she knows all about the past that Amy left behind.  Unless Amy gives her what she wants, Roux will make the information public.

Several party and “icebreaker” games are mentioned:  Never Have I Ever, Mother May I, Truth or Dare, Two Lies One Truth, Spin the Bottle, Bet.

Having read Jackson’s last novel, The Almost Sisters, this title is something of a departure for her.  Probably 20 pages of baby chores could have been omitted (feeding the baby, changing the baby, checking the baby, etc.), but unlike Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game, the baby conversation doesn’t hijack the story.  Several good plot twists kept me turning the pages.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for a review.