Dirtbag Queen by Andy Corren

February 17, 2025

Dirtbag Queen by Andy Corren

Corren's irreverant memoir of Renay, his outrageous Jewish redneck mother who raised six kids (sort of) by herself after she split from her husband, isn't like any other memoir you've read. Everyone in their town near Fort Bragg knew Renay, manager of the local bowling alley, gambler and party girl, collector of strippers, card players, bowlers, and other strays who needed a place to sleep for the night. While Renay may not have excelled at cooking, keeping house, or hanging onto money, she lived life to the fullest.

The Inmate by Freida McFadden

March 2, 2024

The Inmate by Freida McFadden

Nurse practitioner Brooke Sullivan takes a job at Raker State Prison out of desperation. She is warned not to develop a personal relationship with any of the inmates or give out any personal information. But Brooke does not disclose that she already know one of the inmates. Not only does she know him, she is responsible for him being in prison.

The synopsis for this book sounded really good, which is probably why I'm so disappointed in it. This is the second book that I read by this author (the other one was The Co-worker, which I felt was better, although it reminded me of Gone Girl). As other reviewers have noted, there is a strong YA feel. Brooke, the main character, gets dumber as the book goes on, almost as though she is reverting to her high school self. Yes, she's had a lot of trauma. But when she runs into the guy she sent to prison, who is now an inmate there, you can practically hear her underwear hitting the floor. The plot was too far-fetched with too many coincidences to ignore. Of course there had to be a corrupt prison guard and an evil Nurse Ratchett type. Not at all original. The epilogue was disturbing rather than satisfying. And in this century, who calls a child being raised by a single parent a bastard? Teens may enjoy her books, but I think I'm done with this author.

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

Prison infirmary

Vera Wong"s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

December 12, 2023

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Vera Wong is a lady of a certain age who owns a failing tea shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. She adheres to a strict daily regimen of rising early and opening the shop, even though she has only one regular customer. This leaves her plenty of time to follow (read: stalk) her only son online. But one morning when she comes downstairs to open the tearoom, Vera finds a dead body on the tearoom floor.

Heartwarming cozy mystery. Vera is a nosy older woman who had advice for everyone, whether they want it or not. She's correct that 20 somethings tend to be self-focused and dramatic - I base that statement on the 20 somethings in my own family. Very enjoyable.

San Francisco's Chinatown

The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar

November 24, 2023

The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar

Remy Wadia has traveled back to India, the country he left a decade earlier, to adopt a baby. He plans to meet the baby's mother, visit his estranged mother briefly, and then return home to the United States. But things take a sudden turn when he learns among other things that his mother is seriously ill and in the hospital.

I love Umrigar's fiction. She writes about universal topics from a new angle (not necessarily an Indian angle). Beautiful language. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys literary fiction.

A Mumbai street market/shopping district (the author still refers to Mumbai as Bombay)

Northwoods by Amy Pease

October 7, 2023

Northwoods by Amy Pease

After serving in Afghanistan, Eli Woods suffers from PTSD and self-medicates with large amounts of alcohol. He has a job as a sheriff's deputy only because his mother is the town sheriff. When a teenaged boy is found dead and his friend is missing, Eli partners with an FBI agent and joins the search. But the more answers he gets, the more tangled the mystery becomes.

The whole story here swirls around addiction. Although this is a decent mystery, the author tried to cover too many big topics: PTSD, alcoholism, addiction, the opioid crisis, big pharma, white collar crime, family relationships. The narrative would have benefited from less description involving extraneous characters (is it really important that the wife of the guy who owns the fishing camp wears a ton of make-up and has her boobs practically hanging out of her top?). 

Set in the North Woods of Wisconsin, this really could have been set in any small vacation town. I know this area - we vacationed there several times when I was a kid, and later with my husband. "Resort" is something of a misnomer - the term resort makes me think of luxury linens, spa facilities, golf, and fine dining. The resorts in the North Woods are more like fishing camps. Nothing bad about that, we loved them as kids. I've never seen a country club in this area like the one described in the book, but I do know the gangster John Dillinger had a hideaway in Wisconsin called the Little Bohemia Lodge (it's still there today).

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

North Woods fishing camp

When Blood Lies by C. S. Harris

April 30, 2022

When Blood Lies by C. S. Harris

March 1815 - Napoleon is in exile, Louis XVII has been restored to the throne of France, and Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, and his family have traveled to Paris in hope of tracing Sebastian's long-lost mother, Sophie, Countess Hendon. At the same time, an international conference is being held in Paris. Sebastian locates Sophie, but comes upon her as she lies dying from an assailant's attack. Sophie had been living as mistress to Marechal Alexandre McClellan, a French nobleman of Scottish ancestry who was first one of Napoleon's generals and now had sworn allegiance to the king. When French authorities show no interest in pursuing who killed the notorious Englishwoman, Sebastian and his wife Hero take it on themselves to hunt down the murderer and bring them to justice.

With each book in this series, we learn a little more about Sebastian's background. This is the 17th book in the series and one of the best, IMHO. Like the previous books, it is filled with fantastic historical details and accuracy, blending real events and people seamlessly with fiction.

A Parisian cafe, 1815

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

December 22, 2021

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

Following the death of his father, Benny Oh begins to hear voices. Not just any voices - he hears items like a shoe, vegetables, furniture, and Christmas decorations speaking to him. His depressed mother develops hoarding tendencies, which doesn't help Benny's situation. He finds solace in the quiet of a large public library, where the books speak to him but in an orderly fashion, and he meets a variety of street people who also take refuge there. 

Although I liked the story and it held my attention, it's very difficult to categorize or describe. The narrator is a book that tells Benny's story. As a librarian at a public library for 30 years, I recognized many of the characters that Benny encounters at his public library. Libraries are safe havens for many people who otherwise don't fit in or have nowhere else to go. Books and libraries can save us by finding a way out of our own heads - I have always known this. It's also about how we fill our emptiness. Some people fill their emptiness with alcohol or drugs or excitement; others lean toward books, art, and objects.

I really like the author's previous book, A Tale for the Time Being. Ozeki tends to write in an experimental style. While this isn't for everyone, readers of literary fiction will find a lot to think about.

I Stopped Time by Jane Davis

March 14, 2020

I Stopped Time by Jane Davis

Sir James Hastings grew up without a mother – she abandoned their family when he was a baby.  So imagine his surprise when dozens of boxes of photographs are delivered to his house, his mother’s legacy of a lifetime of photography.  With the help of a local woman who is an art student, Sir James starts to go through the boxes and unravel the true story of his mother’s life.  Lottie, James’ mother, was a very modern woman for her time.  She not only abandoned her family to pursue a career of her own as a photographer, she also moved in with a man she was not married to and lived with him for over 50 years.  As James goes through his mother's photographs, he slowly realizes that they had more in common than he thought, and that the villain of his life wasn't so evil after all.

Jane Davis has written a remarkable piece of historical fiction that includes not only memorable characters, but wonderful descriptions that really evoke the time and place for the reader.  The story moves between two points of view and two eras, but since chapters are clearly labeled with the date and character, it is easy to follow and the two personal narratives are entwined seamlessly, right up to the satisfying conclusion.  Commonalities gradually emerge between the two main characters, such as not knowing much about their mothers, having unconventional lifestyles for their time, and unrelenting pigheadedness.

“Stopping time” refers to capturing a moment in time with a camera.  This is good escape fiction for the turbulent times that we are living through.  If you are interested in fiction about photographers, you might also like Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg.