The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

August 3, 2025

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

Olivia Dumont is a ghostwriter, working with the rich and famous to craft memoirs that can be marketed as being written by the famous subject. But she is blackballed and her career has tanked after being sued for publicly slandering a fellow ghostwriter. About to lose her home to pay the settlement and legal fees, she is desperate for work and agrees to take on the memoir of a famous horror writer who was accused of murdering his two siblings. Now, 50 years later, he claims he is ready to reveal what really happened. The only problem is, the writer is Olivia's father who she has been estranged from for two decades.

Slow moving. It takes Olivia a looooong time to get to the heart of her father's manuscript. Ultimately unsatisfying, as there is no real resolution to the mystery. A cast of unreliable narrators and unlikeable characters. It does have a cool cover graphic.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

City of Dreams by Don Winslow

May 5, 2025

City of Dreams by Don Winslow

After double-crossing the Moretti crime family in Rhode Island, Danny Ryan flees the east coast for California with his father, his toddler son, and the remnants of his Irish crew. He just wants a quiet life, to start over with his child. But federal agents contact him about doing them a favor; in return, they will help his problems from his old life go away. But then Danny learns that one of the film studios is making a movie based on the crime wars back in Providence, and he decides he wants in on the project.

The second book in the Danny Ryan trilogy, sequel to City on Fire, picks up exactly where the previous book leaves off. Loosely based on Vergil's Aeneid, which is the sequel to Homer's Iliad. Danny insists (a little too much) that he wants to go straight and live a quiet life, but just like the leopard, Danny can't change his spots: crime and bad decisions just seem to find him. All of the characters except Danny's son display some moral ambiguity - no one is all bad or all good. Furthermore, there is a pervading sense of tragedy that affects all the characters. Doesn't work as a stand-alone novel - you need to read the previous book to really understand what is going on here. I can't wait to get the final book in the trilogy, City in Ruins.

Everyone is Watching by Heather Gudenkauf

May 2, 2025

Everyone is Watching by Heather Gudenkauf

Five contestants are invited to participate in a reality TV show with the chance to win $10 million. None of them know how or why they were chosen. All of the contestants as well as the program host have secrets, and when faced with strategic challenges and isolation, facades start to crack apart. They soon realize that someone brought them together for revenge and the stakes are life or death.

Revenge by way of reality TV show. A twisty suspense novel that is also a locked-room mystery centered around the current popularity of reality "must-see" TV shows, like a combination of Survivor and Squid Game, with notes of Agatha Christie. It's a fast fun read, with a cast of unlikeable characters, unreliable narrators, and a gorgeous but creepy gothic setting. It also offers a commentary on the voyeuristic aspects of social media and how far some people are willing to go for wealth, fame, and influence. A good choice for vacation or beach reading.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

A creepy gothic mansion, not exactly a place where I'd like to spend two weeks

Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley

April 10, 2025

Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley

Dan scores a reservation at the exclusive La Fin du Monde restaurant and takes his wife Jane to celebrate their wedding anniversary. But his timing is off, since Jane has decided that she is going to ask for a divorce over dinner (also maybe not the best timing). Not to mention that climate change activists have chosen that night to bomb the restaurant.

Quirky and fun, with a long-term marriage that turns out to be a romance after all. Recommended for readers who enjoy off-beat fiction like Nothing to See Here or Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review. 

The Guncle by Steven Rowley

March 8, 2025

The Guncle by Steven Rowley

Patrick is an actor who starred in a successful long-running network sitcom, but when the sitcom ended and he lost his partner in a car accident, Patrick left Hollywood and fled to Palm Springs. After the death of his sister-in-law who was also his best friend, Patrick finds himself looking after his niece and nephew for the summer while their father is in rehab. Having the two children stay with him forces Patrick to face his own unresolved grief.

A heartwarming, funny and uplifting story about family, grief, and second chances. A Guncle is your gay uncle, and Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP for short) is the uncle we all wish we had. Full of great characters, from Patrick and the two kids, to the gay throuple (yes, it's a threesome) who live next door - even Marlene the dog and Patrick's uptight sister Clara (who definitely has a stick up her butt) are great characters. As much as I like this book, I don't plan on reading the recently released sequel because it won't be able to live up to this one, and I have no intention of EVER reading Lily and the Octopus.

Palm Springs, CA

The Women by Kristin Hannah

October 5, 2024

The Women by Kristin Hannah

Frankie McGrath grew up in a wealthy family on Coronado Island, California. Her father always preached the importance of service to one's country, but when Frankie volunteers for Vietnam as an Army nurse, her socialite parents are horrified and go to great lengths to hide Frankie's service from their friends. Frankie faces the horrors of war, but when she comes home, she is not prepared to face the scorn of her fellow American or the shame of her family.

Let's get one thing straight right away: women have gone to war as long as their have been wars. They were nurses, cooks, laundresses, ambulance drivers, clerks, spies, and yes, camp followers. Women have stood behind their men, reloading their guns for them, or fighting right beside them. All of the men in the book who claim there were no women in Vietnam were not paying attention. There is only one veteran in the book, a World War II veteran, who honors Frankie for her service, saying that he is alive today because a nurse like Frankie saved his life in France. It wasn't until two television series aired, China Beach and MASH, that Americans realized what these wonderful women did, and were ashamed of how they treated the men and women who returned home from the Vietnam War.

The government was just as bad, offering few services to the men returning from Vietnam, and absolutely none to the women veterans. PTSD was unknown at the time, as were the dangers of chemicals like Agent Orange, which caused high rates of cancer and miscarriages in veterans. In addition, the women veterans had to fight to have their fallen women comrades' names included on The Wall. There are now eight nurses honored on The Wall.

This is a wonderful book about the nurses who served in the Vietnam War. The author's previous book The Nightingale is about women on the homefront in France during World War II, also spectacular. I highly recommend both of these books to readers of historical fiction, literary fiction, or women's fiction.

The Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington DC near the Vietnam War Memorial, aka The Wall - it's a Pieta of three nurses and a wounded soldier - there is a third nurse kneeling behind the three figures that you can see in this photo

A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley

March 9, 2023

A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley

In 1851 Monterey, California, there is one woman for every ten men. Two young women from the Midwest, Eliza and Jean, find work at the local brothels, serving a varied clientele, some odd, some kind, some female. It's a dangerous business to be in, but then, it's a dangerous business just being a woman. When a prostitute is found murdered, the two girls are astounded that no one is particularly interested in finding the killer. Both Eliza and Jean are fans of Edgar Allan Poe, so when the body of another murdered girl is found, they decide to do some amateur investigating.

I've read most of Jane Smiley's books, and this is a departure from her usual literary fiction. More historical fiction than mystery, there are wonderful historical details about life in what is basically a Wild West town in the mid-19th century, as well as prostitution at that time. For a pair of prostitutes, Eliza and Jean are quite respectable. The mystery is sort of secondary to the history. Disappointing overall.

Monterey, California in the mid-19th century

The Shamshine Blind by Paz Pardo

January 5, 2023

The Shamshine Blind by Paz Pardo

The United States and the rest of the superpowers lost the Falklands conflict after Argentine developed a psychopigment weapon of mass destruction called Deepest Blue. Psychopigments alter human emotions positively or negatively. Kay Curtida is a Latinx detective with the Psychopigment Enforcement Agency, tasked with tracking down black market distributors of psychopigments in the sleepy town of Daly City just outside the ruins of San Francisco. When an old friend visits Daly City and drops hints about a ring selling fake Sunshine Yellow. Sunshine Yellow is an antidepressant pigment that most people take just to get through their day. The fake yellow pigment, called Shamshine Yellow, mixes the real pigment with Slate Gray, a major depressive.

This was a really creative and clever take on a dystopian society. The characters are well-written and engaging but the plot was very complicated and at times I had a hard time figuring out what was going on and keeping all the characters and their affiliations straight. The names of some of the pigments are clever: Ginger Curiosity, Cool Teal, Lavender Hope. 

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.