Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

January 6, 2024

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

Lucy and Savannah were best friends, until the night that Savvy is murdered, and Lucy is found wandering the streets covered in Savvy's blood. Because of a severe head injury, Lucy has no memory of what happened, so her friends and family immediately suspect that Lucy killed Savvy. She relocates to Los Angeles and starts a new life, until a popular podcast called "Listen for the Lie" announces that their next season will investigate Savvy's murder.

So many lies here. There is a lot going on: we have an unreliable narrator who has no recollection of events due to a head injury; the small town of Plumpton, TX, is a twisty little place, with everyone focused on projecting the image that life is perfect, when in reality, everyone is having an affair with everyone else; a couple of men that everyone loves are actually very violent and abuse their partners regularly. I hated Lucy's parents for automatically believing the story that Lucy's lying husband was telling - they also did not see that Lucy received proper care for her injuries (my mother would have been the same way, more concerned what the neighbors and the people at church would think, and telling me not to make a fuss). As one of the characters notes, people always prefer to believe a man's version of events. Grrrrrrrrr. This is a good mystery with well-developed characters - not sure it was necessary to toss in all the adultery and domestic abuse.

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

A small town in Texas - don't be fooled by the polite, perfect surface appearance

The Wilderwomen by Ruth Emmie Lang

October 20, 2022

The Wilderwomen by Ruth Emmie Lang

Nora Wilder disappeared five years ago, and her two daughters, Zadie and Finn, have no idea why or where she went. Both sisters have a sixth sense: Zadie is a psychic and Finn is able to enter other people's memories and dreams. They wonder if maybe their mother had a sixth sense too, and if it had something to do with why she left. Shortly after Finn's high school graduation, the sisters plan to take a beach vacation in Galveston. But when Finn finds herself in a memory that can only belong to her mother, they decide instead that they need to go search for Nora.

DNF. I have the feeling that the author thought up a cool title and decided to write a book around it. I'm not really a fan of magical realism, and if I had known that was the major theme, I would not have requested this title from NetGalley. I usually enjoy books about missing persons but I didn't connect with the characters at all - too much crap about boyfriends and stuff like Psychic Karaoke. Also, the author's wandering style didn't appeal to me either. Maybe younger readers will like it better, or if you're a fan of magical realism like Alice Hoffman, you'll probably like this book a lot more than I did.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the author for providing an eARC.

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

June 16, 2020

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

As the Civil War rages, slaves Hannie Gossett, her mother, and siblings are sent by their owner from Louisiana to his property in Texas, as a way to protect his assets.  But the relative sent to safeguard the slaves on their journey begins selling them off at the Texas towns they pass through.  Ten years after the end of the Civil War, Hannie still lives at the Gossetts’ Louisiana plantation, but as part of a group of sharecroppers who have worked to gain ownership of their land.  But the plantation owner has gone missing, and the sharecroppers fear that if he dies, his wife will burn the deeds to the sharecroppers’ property.  Hannie breaks into the main house, determined to find the deed, only to find that Mr. Gossett’s mixed race daughter Juneau Jane is there as well, searching for documents that will protect her and her mother (Mr. Gossett's mulatto "fancy woman").  Determined to track down Mr. Gossett or his business partner, Hannie disguises herself as a boy and travels with Gossett’s two daughters from Louisiana to Texas to try and locate one of the men, or at least find out what happened to Gossett.

Along the way, the girls discover a newspaper column called Lost Friends, which prints letters for people (mostly former slaves) seeking lost family members.  They begin to collect more stories from the people they meet on their quest, and Hannie vows to help as many of them as she can, while searching for her own lost family.

In a parallel story, Benny Silva takes a job as an English teacher in Augustine, Texas, the town founded by the Gossett family.  The school is woefully short of supplies, and she contacts Nathan Gossett, the heir to the Gossett house, about donating books from the Gossett library to the school.  Little do either of them suspect that they are opening up a long-sealed chapter of local history.

Like her previous novel (Before We Were Yours), Wingate shines a spotlight on a hidden or forgotten piece of history.  The newspaper excerpts printed between the chapters really humanize the true horror of slavery even among those who treated their slaves "well":  of men owning other people and selling them off with no more thought than they would their cattle, often being sold repeatedly; of the separation of families; of the lifelong desire and need to find those families again, with the search sometimes lasting over 40 years; and of the injustices that former slaves continued to suffer, even after freedom.

Moving and at times gut-wrenching, I highly recommend this historical novel to anyone who wants to learn more about unknown history and injustices that last to this day.

Things You Would Know if You Grew Up Around Here by Nancy Wayson Dinan

May 27, 2020

Things You Would Know if You Grew Up Around Here – Nancy Wayson Dinan

Texas, May 2015 – in the hill country of east Texas, three women head out into the aftermath of a hurricane and flood, searching for lost loved ones.  Boyd searches for her best friend Isaac; Boyd’s parents Lucy Maud and Kevin search for Boyd and Isaac; Carla, a transplant from Austin, searches for Lucy Maud and Boyd, as well as a sense of belonging, something she has missed all her life.

This one fell a little flat for me.  The characters make a lot of stupid decisions (but as I've told other librarians, if the characters didn't do dumb things, most novels would be three pages long).  The writing is beautiful and the descriptions are lush, and most of the characters are well-fleshed out.  My issue is with the lack of plot and resolution.  At least two characters are introduced and figure in the novel for long sections but don't serve a purpose.  But these are the hallmarks of literary fiction, and fans of literary fiction will love this.

I'm back to work at the library so I will start getting more bestsellers rather than advanced reader copies.  Up until we were ordered back to work by the City of Chicago ten days ago, I haven't been concerned about contracting COVID-19.  I followed the city and state's guidelines:  stayed home as much as possible, isolated from family and friends, only went out when I absolutely needed to, and always wore a mask when outside my own house and yard.  Now I am taking public transportation to work, and the city is planning to throw open the library's doors one day next week.  There are very few safety regulations in place:  we have no plexiglas shields or face shields, no barriers of any kind to keep patrons back from the staff.  A lot of the responsibility will fall on our security staff, who are already stretched thin, and will now be responsible for checking that patrons are wearing masks, that there aren't too many patrons sitting in an area, and that they don't stay in the building longer than they are supposed to.  It's an impossible task for security.

A library is different from other businesses, like a restaurant, a retail store, a nail or hair salon, or an office - all of those organizations can restrict who comes into their place of business.  They can tell a person who is dirty or appears to be sick that they have to leave.  Libraries don't have that luxury - we are open to the dirtiest, smelliest people in the city.  All a homeless person will have to do to enter the library building is pull his t-shirt up over his face until he is past the guard station and in the building.  People dump their kids at the library when they go to work.  Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago, has closed the beaches, parks and jogging paths but she is hell-bent on reopening the library ASAP - she has more concern for the health of joggers and bikers than she does for library patrons and staff.  I know who I'm not voting for next mayoral election!

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

 

Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke

September 6, 2019

Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke

Texas Ranger Darren Mathews has gotten himself into a whole lot of trouble:  by protecting an old family friend, he may have committed a felony and implicated himself in a murder.  Worse, his shifty mama has something on him and is engaging in some low-level blackmail, while Darren's wife and uncle are getting up in his business.  Darren is assigned to the task force investigating the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT), reviewing telephone records and correspondence from incarcerated ABT members.  When the son of an ABT leader goes missing, he is assigned to assist local police in the search for the child.

A very enjoyable mystery, fast-paced and complex.  If you haven't read the first book in the series (Bluebird, Bluebird), you should read that one first, since there are frequent references to characters and events in the first book.  This was really the only negative for me, since it's been a while since I read the other story.  While Heaven, My Home could be read as a stand-alone, it was complicated even having read Bluebird, Bluebird.

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