The Velvet Hours by Alyson Richman

The Velvet Hours presents two stories about two women in Paris. One story takes place toward the end of the nineteenth century. The other takes place just prior to the German occupation of France during World War II. The stories are connected because the first woman is the grandmother of the second. This novel is inspired by a true story.

Marthe De Florian is a woman who loved beautiful things. These objects included art that she collected, specifically Asian sculptures. Yet at the same time she was a beautiful thing collected by men of her era. Marthe became pregnant by one of the men in her life when she was a young woman. She wasn't interested in raising a child so she gave this young boy up to a couple who could not have their own. Years later later the young boy is a man who has little to no interest in his birth mother. However, he has a daughter who is a writer and believes that she might get a story from her estranged grandmother. The man introduces them and the novel splits into two stories: Marthe's and Solange's.

The two women are different in the way they give themselves to love. Marthe lived her life at the edge of respectable society. She was a kept woman. Her longest relationship was with a wealthy man who had a wife and a son. They clearly loved each other but his one criteria for their relationship to continue was that she would not interfere with his marriage and life apart from her. Except for one minor incident she kept to this rule. Solange finds her love in a more traditional way when she meets an unattached man and they discover they are attracted to each other.

There isn't a great deal of tension in this novel until the end of Solange's story. Instead its power is drawn from its picture of two eras and the way the writing shows a wonderful appreciation for art and history through the importance of art to the characters. This includes the sculptures I mentioned and a brilliant portrait of Marthe De Florian by Giovanni Boldini. In Solange's story the objects that have the most importance are rare, Jewish books left to her by her mother, including the Barcelona Haggadah, a priceless narrative of the Exodus.

I listened to the audio version which was read magnificently by Tavia Gilbert and Kate Reading. The result was a sensual story created through a combination of beautiful writing and reading.

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Kindred by Octavia Butler is an outstanding sci-fi novel published in 1979. It has been around a long time but this is the first time I've read it. The story is about Dana, a black woman who is transported back in time to save the life of one of her ancestors. This is complicated because the ancestor is a young, white boy, the son of a plantation owner in the Antebellum South. Dana does not have papers designating her as a freed slave so she has some extreme problems. These problems are sometimes compounded and sometimes alleviated by the fact that she is a highly educated woman in a time and place when most blacks were prevented from learning to read.

Dana goes back and forth between her ancestor's time and her own. She may spend months in the past then return to find she's only been gone for a few days. Yet anything that happens to her physically in either time period remains, including scars from a brutal whipping.

In many ways the book reminded me of the song from South Pacific with the line, “You've got to be taught to hate and fear...” For this reason this book is relevant to the discussions we are having today about systemic racism. Butler presents us readers with people who were not born filled with hatred but instead conformed to the horrible norms of the day. This is true among both the whites and blacks in her book. Even Dana is changed somewhat after living in a society where slavery is accepted.

Apparently, Kindred is in pre-production for an FX series. That should be great but I recommend reading the book first.

The Garden of Happy Endings by Barbara O’Neal

I read The Garden of Happy Endings because it was recommended to me by Goodreads. I suppose that was because I had read and enjoyed a couple of novels by Gail Godwin: Father Melancholy's Daughter and Evensong. All three of these books treat priests/ministers in a realistic manner, exposing their flaws but also telling of their struggles to make the world a better place.

The Garden of Happy Endings has a few elements that touch on the mystical side of Christianity: angels, ghosts (human and animal) and callings but that isn't the core of the book. It's about living one's life with faith. That includes losing faith when tragedy or personal disappointment strikes. It also includes having faith fill a void created by loss.

This novel is listed in three categories on Amazon: Women's Divorce Fiction, Sisters Fiction and Women's Sagas. The latter two are obvious. The first less so because there is no actual divorce in the plot. There are, however, three women who split from their partners for different reasons and react to their separations in different ways.

The male characters in the novel are less developed than the females, which makes sense since the book is written from the points of view of the three women: Elsa (a minister going through a faith crisis), Tamsin (Elsa's sister) and Alexa (Tamsin's daughter). They all have stories worth telling.

I recommend this book for anyone looking for a good story of faith and its power to help deal with tragedy and broken relationships.

 

To the Bones by Valerie Nieman combines the fun of a sci-fi/fantasy novel with a serious critique of greed in business, especially when that greed leads to environmental harm. It is set in a small, coal mining town in West Virginia. The coal industry is waning, but the business leaders in charge have found a way to keep exploiting the people and the land surrounding them.

Darrick, a mild-mannered government auditor, traveling alone, goes off the highway for gas and ends up in a pile of human bones in what appears to be a small cave but is actually a mine crack. He's been beaten, has a serious injury to his head and has been left for dead. He still manages to climb out of the hole. He can't remember what happened to him, so he limps off seeking help. Darrick is taken in by a strong willed woman named Lourana who has her own problems. Lourana's adult daughter, Dreama, is missing and Dreama is not the sort of woman to lose contact with her mother unless she's in serious trouble.

I loved the characters in this story, especially Louranna. She's a working class woman who manages a sweepstakes parlor. She knows taking in a stranger could be dangerous, but she helps Darrick because she feels it is the right thing to do. Darrick is also interesting as he learns he has a lot more going for him than he first realized. Their relationship is the core of the novel. The secondary characters are also well developed from the townspeople who think they've seen a Zombie to an ex detective who has been relegated to cleaning offices.

The sci-fi/fantasy aspect to the novel centers on abilities Darrick has and on abilities members of the wealthy Kavanagh family have. The progress Darrick makes to understand and use his skills for good is a major part of the plot, but the growth in his confidence is just as important.

To the Bones is excellently written by Valerie Nieman. I listened to the audio version read by Eric Fritzius. He also did a wonderful job. The story helped shorten a long trip I took.

Mission: Angola by Randall Krzak

If you are a fan of action thrillers, you should give Mission: Angola (Xavier Sear Thriller Book 1) a read. This novel by Randall Krzak is the story of an ex-CIA agent who has been recruited to rescue a kidnapping victim from a camp in the heart of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The victim is the son of an Angolan cabinet minister and has dedicated his life to serving desperate people in remote villages in Angola. Parts of the story are set in both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola with the action crossing the border a number of times.

Randall Krzak served in the U.S. Army in Africa, among other places. This shows in his writing. He's a master of detail from the jungle camps to the cities. He includes descriptions of local food I found fascinating. He also knows military weapons and other gear very well.

A good action thriller needs a strong villain. This book has a number of them. Jonah Alimasi, the leader of the group that kidnapped Doctor Mwanga is the worst, but there are plenty of others including Russian agents and locals willing to betray just about everyone they know. There is a great deal of violence in Mission: Angola, which is why I recommend it to fans of that genre.

Evensong by Gail Godwin is a beautifully written, slow-moving novel. It is a book for readers who want to delve deep into the lives of realistic characters. This book is the sequel to Father Melancholy's Daughter which is the story of the daughter of an Episcopalian priest. In Evensong, Margaret has followed her now deceased father into a career as a priest. She has married an older man, Adrian, who was a friend of her father's and still idolizes the man. Daddy issues are a main theme throughout this novel, not only through Margaret, whose was raised by her father after her mother abandoned the family, but also through her husband, who was abandoned by his parents, and Chase, a young, troubled teenager whom Margaret and Adrian take into their home after he had difficulties in foster care.

As with Father Melancholy's Daughter, I loved the picture this novel paints of life inside a church. The people are real. Margaret deals with different opinions and personality issues as she works to create a safe environment for ritual and worship. She is also on-call at all hours for people who need religious counseling. We see the personal side of Margaret's life. There are issues with her marriage stemming from her husband's insecurities as well as an incident in her own history that should have been private but isn't.

One odd thing about this novel is that although it is a slow story it gets exciting as everything wraps up at the end. I would have preferred a an ending that fit the style of the rest of the book more appropriately but other than that Evensong is a great read.

Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly

 

Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly is the third book in her series about stories of women who lived during major American wars. These books are historical fiction inspired by real characters. The people surrounding the principal characters are a mixture of historic figures and fictional people. Sunflower Sisters has small roles for Frederick Law Olmsted and Abraham Lincoln among others.

The books do not have to be read in order. In fact, they go back in time so what happens in the preceding books actually occurs later. I've read Lilac Girls, the first in the series, but have not yet read the second, Lost Roses. Lilac Girls is set during World War Two. Lost Roses is set during World War One and Sunflower Sisters is set during the American Civil War.

Each book follows three women born into situations very different from each other. In Sunflower Sisters: Georgeanna Woolsey is an abolitionist from New York City who becomes a wartime nurse, Jemma is a slave on a tobacco plantation in Maryland and Ann-May Wilson is the woman who controls that plantation and owns Jemma. The story moves from plantations in Maryland to the luxurious buildings in New York and Washington where high society events take place and to the battlefield in Gettysburg.

The brutalities of war and of slavery are shown, but the book also focuses on women's rights. Georgeanna runs into problems as she attempts to become a nurse. Almost all of the nurses at that time were men who saw female nurses as threats to their jobs. I did not know anything about the history of female nurses in America, so this subplot was especially interesting to me. The novel also covers issues such as addiction and infidelity through the character of Ann-May.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun is the story of an artificial friend or “AF” as she is referred to in the novel. She is a sophisticated, animated doll with artificial intelligence brought to a level as close to a human as possible—all in a toy for a teenager. The story is told entirely from her point of view. Klara is unusual among the AFs because she can observe and evaluate events that are happening around her on a level that has never been seen before, at least not by the manager of the store that sold her.

Klara sees things we can recognize, but she sees them with the eyes of someone who is totally naive. Most of the time we readers end up shaking our heads and laughing at how Klara thinks in such an odd way. But as the novel goes on some of Klara's observations turn out to be different than what we expected. This lends an interesting, spiritual slant to the novel.

There is also a subplot in Klara and the Sun concerning the people surrounding Klara. This technologically enlightened society has come up with a new form of prejudice. Although this other plot does not directly affect AFs, it is woven into Klara's story in a way that demonstrates the level of empathy Klara has reached.

The humans in the story are well portrayed. Although we see them all through Klara's eyes, we get to know their strengths and their flaws. Josie, the teenager who chooses Klara, is loyal and fun, but she has her moments when she gets jealous or argumentative. Josie is suffering from a health issue that might cause her death. The people around her such as Rick, her best friend, and Chrissie, her mother, are all impacted by Josie's health and show their concern in different ways. Paul, Josie's father, shows up later in the novel and also demonstrates his love for Josie in an entirely different way. The minor characters, such as Henry Capaldi, a portrait artist, are also believable and unique. The relationships between these characters keep the story going every bit as much as Klara's ability to observe and learn.

This is the most imaginative novel I've read since Kazuo Ishiguro's other book, Never Let Me Go. It's SyFy but I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good novel.

Across the Great Lake by Lee Zacharias

The great lakes are fresh water lakes. Fresh water freezes at thirty-two degrees fahrenheit, a few degrees warmer than the temperature where salt water freezes. This increases the likelihood that freshwater ice will form quicker and be thicker, which is a problem for ships crossing Lake Michigan.

Across the Great Lake is the story of Manitou, a railroad ferry, in service in the early twentieth century. Railroad ferries were huge boats designed to carry railroad cars. Train engines would load the cars onto tracks built on a deck in the boat, then other engines would unload them when the boat reached the other side of Lake Michigan. This way the railroad could avoid traveling a huge distance to go around the lake.

Manitou was nicknamed the Bull of the Woods because it was a sturdy boat, capable of breaking through thick ice. It had such a great reputation for this it was often sent out to free other ferries trapped in the ice.

Lee Zacharias' novel is written from the point of view of Fern, the five-year-old daughter of the captain of the Manitou. The book has been thoroughly researched and is beautifully written, describing all the details of the boat and of the problems the crew takes on as they cross this massive body of water. By choosing to look at the boat through the naive eyes of a child and have her speak with experienced seamen, Zacharias is able to explain everything from the most elementary details to the more complicated ones. I knew very little about this part of American history and I was fascinated by it. She also managed to accomplish this without stopping the flow of the story.

At the beginning of the book Fern's mother is depressed because she has just lost a baby at the end of her pregnancy. She cannot find the strength to get out of bed to take care of her daughter, so Captain Halvorsen is left with no choice other than to take Fern on his scheduled journey across the lake. Once on board he assigns Alv, a fourteen year-old-boy, the youngest member of the crew, to watch out for her. Their relationship pushes the story along on a personal level.

The narrative bounces back and forth between Fern at age five and Fern as an adult looking back on her experiences. Among the characters other than Fern, Alv is the most important, but we also follow her relationships with her father, her mother, her stepmother and many of the members of the crew. This book captured me and I recommend it highly.

Across the Great Lake won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for fiction, a Michigan Notable Book Award and a silver in the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

The Mysterious Affair at Styles was the first of Agatha Christie's published books. It is a good read, but not exactly what I was expecting. Hercule Poirot did not come into the story until about a third of the way in and kept disappearing as he was investigating the case.

The story is told by Arthur Hastings, a wounded veteran of the First World War who runs into his friend, John Cavendish. John invites Arthur to stay at the estate owned by his family. While Arthur is there, John's mother is poisoned. She was a very wealthy and cantankerous woman with a husband who is much younger than she.

Arthur again runs into a friend of his. This time it is Hercule Poirot, whom he first met while he was in France. Poirot is soon involved with the case and along the way, attempts to teach Arthur tricks of the trade for successful detectives.

The book is filled with interesting characters including the Cavendish family and Alfred Inglethorp, the victim's second husband. Emily Inglethorp's money provides a motive for almost every character in the story. There's also a will that has been partially burned, doors that may or may not have been bolted and lots of other clues. The story has plenty of twists and turns and was fun to read. 

I read Father Melancholy's Daughter decades ago, before there were sites to post reviews. All I remembered about the book was that I loved it, especially when combined with its sequel, Evensong. So I decided to read them both again.

Father Melancholy's Daughter is the story of an Episcopal priest, Walter Gower, whose wife, Ruth, leaves him and his daughter, Margaret, in search of a life with more excitement and creativity. She takes off with an old friend who is a professional set designer for stage productions. It was expected that Ruth would be gone for a short time, but that time keeps growing. Eventually an event occurs which makes the departure permanent.

Walter Gower suffers from periods of depression he refers to as “The Black Curtain.” These existed prior to his wife's departure, but that event didn't help. Margaret, who is just six-years-old when her mother leaves, must step in to take on parts of the role her mother filled. She needs to help her father deal with his issues and also with problems around his church. As the year's go by, they grow closer. Although Margaret goes through the normal events of adolescence, such as her first sexual experiences, her studies, her college choice, and her first love, she is tied to her father in ways that are unusual and demanding.

Gail Godwin writes with a level of detail which builds a complete world for her readers. I loved the way she showed the inner workings of a church. The people are real and talk more about literature, building issues and rituals than about God. These people also have their failings, including a tendency to laugh at some of their parishioners behind their backs. If I may adapt a quote from Matthew, the novel shows us that “wherever two or more are gathered in my name” there will be gossip and arguments as well as love and help.

I'm glad I went back and reread Father Melancholy's Daughter. I'm looking forward to Evensong.

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

 Agnes Grey has been on my “to read” list since I read and enjoyed D.M. Denton's novel Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit. I am familiar with the most famous works of her sisters, Charlotte (Jane Eyre) and Emily (Wuthering Heights), so I was expecting a novel that had more excitement in its plot. Instead this is a character study of a strong willed woman living in an era where women have limited options.

When Agnes' father loses most of the family savings through a failed investment, Agnes decides to become a governess to help with their financial problems. She has to deal with another problem of that era, class prejudice. The parents of the children she is charged with educating treat her with little respect. The children are even worse. She is supposed to be in charge, yet they run all over her and she receives no backing from the parents.

I was somewhat disappointed that Agnes never took responsibility for any of the problems she encountered. Although she was placed in many no-win situations, she often came off sounding whiny and defensive. Later in the book Agnes moves on to a different family and encounters more problems tied to her role, including lies told about her.

Agnes Grey presents an interesting picture of the problems working class women faced in nineteenth century England. I intend to read Anne Bronte's other novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which has a reputation as one of the first feminist novels.

The Secret, Book and Scone Society tells the story of four women who have secrets in their backgrounds, secrets that have turned them away from friends and family. These women find each other in Miracle Springs, NC, a town where many people come to heal. They are: Nora Pennington, a woman who runs a bookstore. She has an intuition which enables her to find the right books for anyone dealing with a problem. Hester Winthrop, who is a baker and makes wonderful scones. Estella Sadler who manages Magnolia Salon and Spa and is always looking for a new man to flirt with. And June Dixon, who is an employee at the local thermal pool. June once had a higher station in life, but tried to do something nice and paid an enormous price for her efforts.

After a man passing through Miracle Springs dies in an unusual train accident, these women, who originally got together to help each other deal with their own problems, become amateur detectives to find out what really happened to that man. It is fun watching the way they try to solve the case.

The writing could have been tighter, but the characters, especially Nora, were strong and the book hooked me.

Grief Cottage by Gail Godwin

It has been years since I've read any of Gail Godwin's books, so I thought I would try Grief Cottage. This book is about an eleven-year-old boy who has suffered through a number of tragedies. He was being raised by a single mother who did not make much money. They lived in a small, one bedroom apartment and still had trouble making ends meet. When his mother died in a car accident, Marcus received a good amount of money from an insurance policy and was sent off to live with his great aunt Charlotte, an artist living on Pawley's Island near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

I love Godwin's writing, especially the way she develops her characters. Grief Cottage is Marcus' story, but the other characters, especially his Aunt Charlotte are also fascinating. There is also a ghost, who may or may not exist. He remains in a beat up old cottage where he died years earlier during Hurricane Hazel. Marcus sees him and talks to him, but no one else does.

Some of the events that push the plot along happen out of the blue, which stopped me a bit, but that is my only critique. Since reading this I've decided to go back and read two of my favorite Godwin books, Father Melancholy's Daughter and Evensong.

Surviving: A Kent State Memoir by Paula Stone Tucker

Surviving is a memoir written from the perspective of a woman who was attending Kent State in 1970 when the National Guard opened fire on students protesting Richard Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia. Four students were killed. Nine others were wounded including one of the protesters who was paralyzed.

I was also in college when the massacre occurred. I remember the news coverage and first hearing the Neil Young song, “Ohio.” This book contains a unique perspective on the shootings because the narrator, Patty, lived near the school and was a journalism major who was working at the college radio station and newspaper. She was there when the killings occurred. She was covering the event and had also been at previous protests on the campus. One aspect I found particularly interesting was the different attitudes of the students and the townies, even Patty's own family. Her mother's reaction when Patty told her she'd been at the protest was, “You were there? You should have been shot.”

This memoir is not exclusively about the massacre. Most of the book is about a young woman's struggles with problems typical of many college students: financial issues, academic issues and relationship issues. Patty's relationship issues are particularly hard, sometimes because of bad luck, but other times because of poor decisions.

The writing feels honest. Patty's emotions are not diminished into good or bad, but instead show the complexities of her life and the struggles of growing up in the late sixties and early seventies. I recommend Surviving to anyone who likes honest memoirs and also to people who are looking for a different perspective on the Kent State massacre.

The plot and the main characters in The Jane Austen Society are fictional, but many of the facts about Jane Austen and Chawton UK, the community where Miss Austen spent the last eight years of her life, are real. The story takes place in Chawton, just after World War II, more than a hundred years after Jane Austen died. The characters are still living with the pain of the world war, but they have the support of each other. This novel honors the value of intimate friendships and small-town life.

The story is about Jane Austen fans, who are obsessed with her books. They read and re-read the novels repeatedly, then compare the characters' lives and values with their own. They have decided to form a society with the purpose of raising money to establish a museum honoring Austen. These fans consist mainly of people who have grown up in Chawton, but a few others, also obsessed with Austen, are brought into the group. Among those additions there is a famous actress named Mimi Harrison and an auctioneer from Sotheby's named Yardley Sinclair. The group ends up with a wonderful mix of expertise, fame and down-home charm. These friends love literature, specifically Austen's books, but also learn to love each other. There is romance in the book as well as barriers to overcome in pursuit of their goals.

The book is charming and fun, but also has its tense moments. I enjoyed it thoroughly. 

Dared to Run by J. J. Clarke

Dared to Run was not the novel I thought it would be, but it was still a fun read. I had expected Kate Anderson to be a law enforcement officer and the story to be about her tracking down criminals. Kate is part of the legal system, but rather than an officer, she is a “bond investigator from Missouri Probation and Parole.” In Kate's case, this means she often represents people accused of crimes. She meets with judges and negotiates the level of their bonds. This is an interesting position, one I was unfamiliar with prior to reading this novel. But Kate's career isn't where she gets into trouble. She is involved with a man who is abusive. This situation is difficult because he is a well connected deputy sheriff who will not leave her alone. As the book progresses, Kate's situation gets worse and she is forced to go underground, hence the title – Dared to Run.

There are many tense moments in the story, but what I liked the most in the book were the characters Kate encountered as she ran. There are people who help abused women hide from their abusers, sometimes using illegal, but necessary means. There are also fun country people, who are warm and kind. There are also quirky characters, such as Dolly Parton impersonators at a funeral. I found her relationships with these side characters to be fascinating.

There are a number of plot issues that remain unresolved when this novel ends, because this is the first book in J. J. Clarke's Kate Anderson series. I look forward to reading the next one.

 

Sharkano does what all good sci-fi stories should do. It takes real science then adds to it and molds it into an interesting and convincing story. T.A. Bound seems to have a good grasp of facts. He introduced me to terms I wasn't aware of, such as “lava tubes” and utilized them to create frightening situations. I'm not a scientist, but I can google terms and I know when a novel's logic is believable. He has created a crazy, life threatening disaster within the pages of his book.

The characters in Bound's novel are realistic and fully developed. Lexi is a teenager whose parents have recently split up. Her mother, Jacqueline, a successful newscaster, has custody of Lexi, but as the story begins Lexi is on her way to Hawaii, to spend the summer with her father. Burke is leading a team of geologists who are studying a volcano on one of Hawaii's small, remote islands, so this won't be the sun, surf and sand vacation Lexi had hoped for. She is bright and self-assured, but has trouble getting people to believe her because she's young, which leads to more problems.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys a well-written sci-fi/disaster story with lots of tension.

Broody New Englander by Kenneth Weene

Broody New Englander contains a novella along with two short stories. These are entitled The Stylite, Mothers' Teat, and Hansom Dove. Together these stories paint a picture of life in rural New England from a time prior to World War II to a time closer to current years. The writing shows careful attention to detail in the development of the setting and the characters as well as with Weene's elegant use of language. The stories delve into the thoughts and emotions of these New Englanders, tying together the beautiful, but often harsh surroundings with emotions ranging from disappointment and betrayal to a schoolgirl crush and adult lust.

Here's a sample of the writing:

That special summer day, when the sun fell in patches on the brown duff. At once there was chill and warmth, light and dark. The shadowed browns of cones tossed haphazardly on the ground and the deep odor of pine, not the stingy smell that came in bottles to disinfect, but real pine, the sent of her home when it had first been built.

And another:

How often Jeannine had laughed to watch the chittering chipmunks dart from tree to tree in acorn time? How often had she held close the fluffed blue flowers that grew against the sunny southern wall? How many times had she touched the twin birch that bent along the water's edge and gently, as if trimming a child's nails, cut away the fringes which seemed by magic to appear in their silver-paper skin.

This is a book to dwell on, to learn from. It is a carefully drawn picture of a place and the people in it, a story of disappointment and rage, but also of love in many forms.

No Way Out by Tower Lowe

No Way Out is a crime novel with some interesting twists. The heroine of the story is Molly, a woman who witnesses a murder. She had recently left a position as a fraud inspector for an insurance company to move to New Mexico. She'd taken a new position as a receptionist in a real estate office, which is where the murder occurred. Gloria, a friend and coworker, was killed. Molly sets out to solve this crime, along with a man named Miguel who was in the office when the murder occurred.

Molly and Miguel each have obstacles they need to overcome. Molly had a stroke when she was fourteen and has not been able to move her left arm since then and Miguel has a history of drug abuse. The way they deal with these problems makes this novel unique.

The murder and the crimes that surround it are also interesting and unusual. One of the characters is running an empowerment seminar that sounds a lot like the NXIVM organization that Allison Mack was involved with. That was fun to read about.

This is a good read for people who enjoy unique mysteries that explore real life issues.

The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig

 

The Bartender's Tale tells the story of life in a rural town in northern Montana, as seen through the eyes of a young boy being raised by his single father. The book takes place in the late fifties/early sixties in a bar where the patrons are mostly farm hands. Tom, the bartender, provides a good life for his son, Rusty, at least that's how the boy sees it. Rusty spends a lot of time in the backroom of the bar with his best friend, Zoe, eavesdropping on the patrons. That's how they learn about life until they are joined by Francine, a young woman out of Tom's past life and Del, a man working on collecting audio stories of life in that area.

I felt the characters were all interesting and the many vignettes were believable and well written. I liked the picture this book gave me of an area of the country I do not know well. I didn't know this was the second book in a series until I was done reading it, which shows how well it stands on its own. I'll probably read the others.

Troubles in Paradise is the third book in a three part series. Winter in Paradise is the first. What Happens in Paradise is the second. The series is set on St. John in the US Virgin Islands. They are light, beach books with some interesting relationships and situations. Many of the characters work in the tourist industry, so there is a constant stream of discussions about the best bars or restaurants on the island. The main plot revolves around a family from Iowa that comes to St. John after their husband/father dies in a helicopter crash and they discover that he had a mistress and a second life he'd been hiding from them. The books are quick reads and lots of fun.

ASK by Amanda Baker

ASK has a fascinating concept. Amanda Baker has published poems (and song lyrics) she wrote starting at age fourteen and continuing up through her early thirties. This is an autobiography, but one that doesn’t include details of travel or family or friends. Instead it shows the author’s inner thoughts. In the end it is a very unique and interesting picture of a person.

Here is the first stanza of a reaction to a relationship that didn't work out when Amanda was fourteen. The work is entitled “Maybe.”

Maybe I’m not in your dreams, but you’re in mine

Maybe I’m not good enough, but I’ll be fine

Maybe you’re just scared you’ll fall in love again

Maybe that is why we can no longer be friends

Here is the first stanza of a poem about love Amanda wrote at age thirty-two. It is entitled “End With Love Reprise.”

This love sees the broken

The withered

The uncertain

This love accepts that space you’re in

I was there too

And that is how I am able to love

It is clear there is a greater sophistication in the work of the woman compared to the work of the teenager, but the search for understanding and meaning in relationships remains the same.

At age twenty-seven, Amanda wrote “Who To Be,” a search for her own identity. Here are the first two stanzas.

Slowly. You can’t hear me.

Softly. Speaking lines

Cautiously.

Parallel to scattered feet

Confused. Sparking mixtures.

Aloof. To signals that just

Prelude

To the next chapter of our youth.

These words show the conscious effort the author is still making to find herself.

Amanda Baker’s work is both personal and brave. I recommend ASK to anyone who enjoys learning the thoughts of a girl as she grows into a woman.

Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis

I'm reviewing Blackout and All Clear together because they are one story split in two due to the length. I loved these books because the characters are so well developed and because there is so much fascinating information about England during WW2. At times the characters become a little confusing because so many of them are time travellers taking on fake identities with multiple names, but in the end everything comes together in an exciting way. These books are great for anyone who wants to dive deep into another world and stay there for a long time. If you decide to read one be prepared to read them both. I've rated both these with five stars.