Maggie

Framed around the real life 11-day disappearance of mystery writer Agatha Christie in 1925, and told from the point of view of Nan O'Dea, Archie Christie's mistress and eventual second wife, this intriguing and lyrical book was a joy to read. It spins an alternative version of the facts to reveal a different “why” to the well-documented events and a surprising yet logical motive behind the actions of all the principal players. The story dives into the past, to the rolling hills of Ireland, a handsome boy-next-door and a convent for out-of-wedlock mothers, to the present day where a double homicide has occurred at a fancy hotel at the same time police forces across England are engaged in a manhunt for the missing author. There are two touching love stories threaded through the narrative, as well as insights into the depth of a mother's love. Bravo to Nina de Gramont's story-telling as well as her intriguing and satisfying denouement.

I can't so enough good things about this debut novel - I devoured it every night before I went to sleep and couldn't wait to get back to it. Elizabeth, the protagonist, is a take-no-prisoners scientist (Not a “woman scientist” as she kept reminding people). The plot is too wacky and tongue-in-cheek to describe but suffice to say, this is a wry, funny, insightful, touching book from beginning to end. It's got the best precocious kid since Be Frank With Me and a lovable, intelligent dog named Six-Thirty who knows over 600 words - plus Elizabeth winds up hosting a cooking show (because as she maintains, cooking IS chemistry) that has more than a whiff of Julia Childs' territory. If you like funny writing with a soul, this book is for you.

Perceptive, detailed, nuanced story about small town prejudices, a missing girl, and smouldering emotions hiding beneath the surface.

If you're a fan of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, this novel definitely needs to be on your list. Cantor reimagines the story from a different vantage point, with POV chapters from Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and a new character Charlotte, who is Myrtle Wilson's sister, newly arrived in New York and desperate to get Myrtle away from what she perceives is an abusive marriage to George and a ill-advised affair with Tom Buchanan. The novel's premise is loosely organized around the question of who REALLY shot Jay Gatsby (assuming it's not George) and to that end, there's a policeman hanging around asking questions of all three ladies. Nick Carraway makes an appearance as do many of our favorite scenes (Daisy and Jordan's floating dresses, Daisy's discover of Tom's affair, the fatal car accident in the yellow Rolls) but this time it's seen from a female-centric gaze and that turns the whole story on its head. Fascinating premise well executed. I read it in a day.

My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

The opening chapter of Behind the Lens drops the reader right in the middle of a perilous attack on a village in Afghanistan where our protagonist, Annie Green, a embedded war photojournalist, witnesses the massacre of an entire village including the two soldiers who escorted her and a lovely young child whose face Annie captured with her camera only seconds before she was felled by a sniper's bullet. The iconic photograph wins Annie a Pulitzer but the incident continues to haunt her eight years later, not only in her conscious thoughts, but in the recurring PTSD nightmares she suffers once she returns for a short visit to the country to reunite with her best friend Darya and her family, and to teach a intro photography course at the girls' school Darya has founded in a small town outside Kabul.
The tension never lets up as danger is everywhere and Annie slowly realizes that almost no one she meets are who they seem. The writing is first-rate and the action will keep you glued to the story as you immerse yourself in the story of the brave Afghan citizens trying to offer women and girls a better life to the military officers, including the gruff but charismatic Cerelli, who is drawn to Annie and puts himself in danger to protect her life. A sub-plot that explores the often-fraught relationships between teenager girls and their mothers fuels a deeper story you won't see coming. Highly recommended not only for a superb, fast-paced plot, but characters that ring true to life and a glimpse of the humanity and tragedy playing itself out in a country wracked by civil war halfway around the world.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review

What a fun, refreshing, clever mystery! This is my first book by Gentill but I'll certainly be going back to check out her previous ones. You know the feeling when you're only a few pages in to a new novel, but you still let out a giant sigh of relief, knowing that regardless where the story takes you, you're in the hands of a writer who knows what she's doing. That was my experience with this fun romp of a mystery, with a murder taking place right under the noses of our four leading characters (who are strangers to each other) at the Boston Public Library and being informed that one of them is actually the killer, though seemingly none of them could be. Add in a clever conceit of a man who's a neighbor of one of them and is corresponding with a well-known mystery author, trying to interest her in using the event as the springboard for her next book. Thoroughly entertaining, lively prose, and a plot that kept me guessing.

Thanks to NetGalley for my advanced reader copy.

A fast read - along the lines of a cute cozy mystery featuring a young woman with psychic powers who teams up with a police detective to solve the murder of her fiancee two years before which may or may not tie back to one of his current cases. An obvious set-up for a continuing series with a new “mentor” character coming on the scene in the last pages. Well-written, good pacing, interesting sidekicks and a likeable plucky heroine. This isn't a deep novel, characters are the types you expect to find in a cozy and the case was fairly straightforward to solve, but it was an enjoyable read.

Come for the escapade and slap-dash humor of two frenemies, Samantha and Holly, signing up for a cross-country road trip to retrieve their mutual best friend Katie's Great Pyrenees from California and drive him back to Wisconsin in a rickety, seen-better-days VW camper. Stay for the wacky but kind-hearted reality star who winds up becoming an intricate part of their entourage as well as a clueless ex-husband, a flirtatious animal sanctuary vet, a tweeting romance with a barely-glimpsed doctor, and a Shaman living in the middle of suburbia. But it's not all madcap mayhem; no, there's also a poignant message of forgiveness and empathy as the journey heals the fractured friendship between the two women in unexpected ways. Replete with Garvin's trademark humor and wisdom, this novel will make you laugh and make you cry, often on the same page. It's a perfect May buddy read with your best friend and a glass of wine or two.

Elizabeth Strout has a very distinctive writing “voice”. It's intimate, brutally honest, but not always sweetness and light. Inevitably her characters seems more alive than most any other author I can think of, as though you're living inside their heads. Many readers I know insist Olive Ketteridge must be a real person, that's how spot on she is in Strout's novels. Now add Lucy Barton to that list, because in this new novel, Strout brings back the protagonist from My Name is Lucy Barton and fleshes her out at a time in her life when she's recently widowed and dealing with rebooting her life as an older woman. We learn more about her backstory, her first husband William, his enigmatic now deceased mother Catherine, the grown daughters they had together, and most of all, Lucy herself as she and William take a road trip to Maine to explore his family origins. The insights into this long-ago first marriage are heartbreaking and poignant, revealing a deep-seated love hidden beneath years of recriminations and heartache.

Not much “happens” in the novel if you're the type of reader who craves plot, but if you long for an intimate character-driven story, this one is for you. There are plain-spoken nuggets of wisdom hidden every few pages that make you stop reading to contemplate your own life choices, your own desires and relationships, and most of all, the roads and maybe detours that have brought you to where you are today.

Highly recommended.

Nuanced and insightful narrative revolving around 3 ballerinas in Paris, the book deftly explores issues of friendship, betrayal, male/female relationships, ambition, women's sacrifices and career vs. family conflict. The author doesn't pull punches, exposing both the triumphs and dark challenges her three main characters experience. Her ideas will stay with me.

The Sound Between the Notes is Probst's second novel. It's framed around a middle-aged woman, who gave up her career as a concert pianist to raise a family, and now has a second-chance at a prestigious concert, only to find a hereditary disease affecting her hand which may not only rob her of the chance but brings up painful memories of the birth mother who gave her up for adoption and a sister she never knew she had. Women's fiction at its most lyrical and poignant. Highly recommended if you love beautifully-written prose that explores a women's deepest fears and longing, both for a family to belong to but also fulfillment of her own strong need to express herself through her work.

(review to come)

Read this in one day and it's a near-to-perfect book. Toward the very end, a bit too many characters being bandied about so that I had to pay close attention and re-read certain parts but otherwise, a well-conceived and crafted book, with engaging but flawed characters and an ingenious plot that kept me guessing. Nicely set up for a sequel and I'll be reading more from this author.

Outstanding debut. I didn't even have this book on my radar two days ago and now I can't stop thinking about it. Truthfully, it reminds me a great deal of two other books I loved - Jane Harper's The Dry and Edvardsson A Nearly Normal Family. If you liked either of those, read this one. It is crazy good. And the surprises don't stop until the very last page. Do not think you know where this is going, because you don't.

So well written I found myself looking forward to bedtime so I could dip back into it and finished it at 2 in the morning yesterday. A complex plot involving the suicide of a talented art student and the mystery behind the videotape art piece she left behind. You don't have to have read Hummel's Still Lives but it helps because some of the same characters appear in this later story. (I did just fine and now want to go back and read the former one). The poignancy of the relationship between Maggie and Ray provides just enough human interest to keep us reading and the other cast of characters are (for the most part) fleshed out and unique. Highly recommended.

An unforgettable saga of a story, primarily centered around a female aviator Marian Graves, who we follow from her incredible birth and the loss of her parents aboard a sinking luxury liner during the Great War to a remote Montana ranch where she's raised by her eccentric uncle alongside her twin brother. A chance encounter with barn-storming stunt pilots ignites her life-long passion for flying, and we are off on her grand adventures, following along as she takes chances, married and leaves her abusive husband, and eventually pushes to become the first pilot to circumvent the globe by flying over the North and South Poles.
A story in the present is interspersed with Marian's narrative – a young up-and-coming star (think Kristen Stewart right after the Twilight movies) gets the role of a life-time when she's hired to play Marian in a new film. While her story is less interesting, it provides a context with Marian's and was well-written and insightful.
But it's Marian we want to follow, and follow we do, through a life lived at full throttle, full of triumphs and losses, but always with an eye toward the sky and the freedom it offers.

kept my attention - thought it was going to turn into a Shirley Jackson-like “The Lottery” but it turned into something different. Inventive and engaging though the digressions to the person in prison were distracting for me.

Dark Roads is the first book by Chevy Stevens I've read and it's a doozy. An engrossing psychological suspense novel, it's four main characters – all in their twenties – have stories which intertwine in a thoroughly realistic and absorbing way.
Cold Creek Highway in the Pacific Northwest is infamous for the series of women hitchhikers who have gone missing in the area. Hailey, whose father has died, is living with her aunt and her policeman husband and hanging around with her childhood buddy Jonny, while striking up a romance with Amber, a waitress at the local diner. When her home life becomes unbearable, she retreats into the deep woods, in almost survivalist mode, and everyone believes she another one of the victims of the area killer. When Amber comes looking for Hailey, she's killed so midway through the book, we are introduced to Amber's sister Beth, who moves to town to investigate her sister's death and quickly becomes romantically involved with Jonny. The three young adults join forces to catch the culprit and the suspenseful ending will keep you guessing, as Stevens has twists up her sleeve you won't see coming.
This is a book chock full of descriptions of spooky deep woods, meandering back roads, and overgrown trails which reminded me of the best passages in The Marsh King's Daughter. There's also a wonderful dog named Wolf who you'll fall in love with. The interplay between the characters is well-played although one of the villains is a bit broadly drawn. Definitely one that will keep you turning pages, wanting desperately to believe good can triumph over evil. Prepare to stay up a few nights as Dark Roads pulls you into its intricate plot.
My thanks to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

SHOULDER SEASON is a nuanced, thought-provoking coming of age story about a young woman, Sherri Taylor, who has lost her parents and through a series of decisions, finds herself thrust from the relative security of her small Wisconsin hometown to a world of sophistication and grown-up challenges when she accepts a job as a bunny at The Playboy Resort in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in 1981. Suddenly she's smack in the middle of a new lifestyle, surrounded by random sex, wild parties, and free-flowing drinking and drug use.

I was captivated by the camaraderie Clancy explores with the motley group of women Sherri works alongside, each with their own reason for taking a job at the resort. While much of the story revolves around her time there as a Bunny, the latter part of the book shows Sherri traveling to southern California where she eventually learns to grow into her own person and jettison her earlier need for approval from the men in her life. I loved emerging myself in the details of the bunny life which I wasn't all that aware of despite living in the area. Sherri was like a girlfriend I alternatively wanted to shake and then lecture about the careless mistakes she was making, bringing havoc not only to her own life but those around her, and causing her life to spiral downward in predictable ways. But I came to realize her evolution was part and parcel of her journey and there is no doubt Clancy has created a fascinating and complex character.

You'll love Sherri or hate her or a bit of both but you won't soon forget her or this complex, well-researched, and ultimately satisfying story.

Thanks to the author and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC in a recent Goodreads Giveaway. The novel released July 6, 2021.

A rich blend of Southern charm and interwoven family relationships, this novel by first-time author Mary Helen Sheriff centers around- you guessed it – a road trip! This one is from Florida through Virginia and follows Eve, a young woman on the cusp of adulthood but still living under her mother Justine's thumb, and Boop, her feisty, funny, yet ultimately complex grandmother. Swirling around these two are Justine and Victoria, Boop's sister, and Ally, Eve's best friend and cousin, who's gone missing. What initially seems like a fun adventure quickly becomes something more, as Eve struggles to follow her own dreams even if it means breaking her mother's heart and Boop wrestles with whether to reveal the secret she's kept from her family for decades. Interspersed with amusing Southern sayings and laugh-old-loud scenes of Boop trying to get Eve to embrace her true self, are weighty themes of depression, mental illness, and birth defects. These characters argue at the drop of a hat, and honest communication sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, but ultimately we see there's a lot of love hiding behind the masks they present to the world and by the end, each has grown into a truer, more resilient, and better version of themselves.

I was given an ARC in exchange for an honest review of the book.

This story is told in two time frames – primarily it's a flashback to the year Amb and Sully, the main characters, were just beginning college, (although you'd never know it from how little attention is paid to studying, papers, tests, classes). Instead, for them, their first semester consisted primarily of an endless round of parties, drinking, drug use, and casual sex. Amb has a roommate Flora, whose high school boyfriend goes to a nearby university. When he comes to campus to visit her, Amb accidentally meets him without realizing his connection to said roommate and falls hard, jettisoning any consideration of Flora and her feelings and instead desperately trying to win him for herself. Within hours, she's made him a fairy-tale prince and imagines a happily-ever-after with him, out of all proportion to their brief encounter. Her obsession leads to a tragic event and now, at her ten-year college reunion, she's getting creepy emails that threaten to reveal her role in the tragedy that occurred. So it's one part whodunit (who's sending the emails, who's after revenge) and one part mean girls at college. For me, neither Amb nor her utterly without socially-redeeming qualities flamboyant best friend Sully were appealing – their behavior was over the top narcissistic and infantile, all they cared about was themselves, their popularity, and making themselves the center of every drama. And their “victim”, poor Flora? She was a stereotype – the virginal good girl who takes everyone at face value and never suspects a thing. While the writing style itself was well done, I felt the plot was tedious and repetitive and none of the major characters seemed realistic or fully fleshed out, but were instead quite superficial and one-note. I'm not opposed to unlikeable narrators but they need to be compelling and well-drawn. Help me understand why they behave the way they do, show me something positive even if it's that they're clever, or witty or had a lousy childhood. Otherwise, they're someone ordered up by central casting – compelling free spirit, low-esteem hanger-on, clueless boyfriend, the hopelessly handsome but hapless husband. Readers nowadays want more. My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC.

For me, this read more like a domestic drama than the psychological thriller it was marketed to be. The novel takes place in two time frames. In the recent past, we meet six couples who have gathered together at a local London community center for a pre-natal class led by Nina, a snarky, somewhat self-absorbed facilitator. Each couple is expecting a child, most by birth but one through adoption. I have to say that I didn't really like any of these characters. They displayed a mix of racist, homophobic, classist, and sexist attitudes during the sessions that were hard to stomach and the main pairing, Jax, a 39-year old professional and her husband Aaron were particularly one-dimensional. The fact that the story was told from multiple points of view, (which seems increasingly common nowadays) meant I didn't really feel close to anyone, but instead felt bounced around without serious depth given to any one person's situation.

The second time frame is a few weeks after the babies are born. It's a BBQ held at the mansion of one of the well-to-do mothers and it's there where a murder occurs. Someone falls off the balcony but their identity is kept secret until halfway through the book, reminiscent of a Big Little Lies trope. There are no shortage of suspects in the vicinity and we then read forward to see who the guilty party is and why they committed the crime.

In my opinion, the pacing in this novel was erratic – slow in the first half, a bit rushed in the second as secret after secret unfolded, some telegraphed so early it was irritating and others terribly convoluted and unrealistic. The solution to the murder, rather than being a twist we could figure out, seemed to come out of nowhere. The novel initially seemed more of an Agatha Christie whodunit but toward the end became more of a police procedural as another POV character, the policewoman investigating the crime and who has issues of her own, entered the scene.
It's always hard to pull off juggling upwards of 15 different characters – the couples, the group leader, the daughter of the wealthy woman, the police detectives – and make them more than stereotypes. In this case, I didn't feel the author succeeded, which was a shame because I felt the bones of a good story were there. Perhaps some pruning was needed to shape the novel into a more cohesive whole. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't all that memorable.


My thanks to Net Galley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

For the first half of the book I was totally enthralled, following along through the alternative storylines but eventually toward the last third, I found myself plodding through and no longer engaged. The parts after she's out of prison with her friends and how things have changed seemed to go on too long, but I did find the relationship between Joanna and Reuben to be fascinatingly complex in both Cover and Reveal story lines. They were each very unique and contrasting personalities and I wound up thinking this was as much a love story as a crime novel.

Very similar to other of Harper's novels, which means well-written, fully-formed characters, a past tragedy informing the present-day mystery and setting that's a character itself-this time, one set not in the dry desert interior but a coastal town, with the water forming a sinister backdrop for a young woman's murder. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy their crimes less bloody and more thought-provoking. Plenty of suspects to choose from and a poignant family story woven in as well.

I was an early reader of this book and can recommend it wholeheartedly.

We spend 40+hours a week in the workplace. Why aren't more books of fiction set there? Luckily, we now have The Exit Strategy by Lainey Cameron, who, in a previous life, was a marketing executive in the high-stakes world of Silicon Valley start-ups. Her debut novel starts out in a typical way. Two intelligent women are pitted against each other: Ryn's a venture capitalist, who has just discovered her husband Todd is having an affair with Carly, the co-founder of the biotech firm which is poised to become Ryn's career-making next investment.

But instead of writing her story as a cut-throat cat-fight, Cameron turns the stereotype on its head and offers up a fast-paced, incisive novel that argues there's a better way. What if these women could somehow join forces, get past the anger and hurt they feel, and work together so both could succeed? Is that possible and what would it take for that to happen? At turns provocative and touching, this novel takes readers inside the misogynistic world of high-level finance, with its behind-closed-door meetings, its sexual innuendos, and its good old boy networks, then offers an alternative glimpse of how business could be changed if women refused to treat other women as competitors and instead viewed them as colleagues. The Exit Strategy is the perfect book for the times we're living through.