🟣 :::READING THREAD::: Week of September 24th

Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon
Set in modern day California and is a debut novel from this author.
The story involves 3 generations of women, Lana the grandmother who has just been diagnosed with cancer who goes to stay with her daughter, Beth who as a young single mother moved to a coastal town and Jack (Jacqueline) Beth’s 15yo daughter.
Jack works as a kayak guide, and on one of her tours they find a dead body floating in the water, when the local police are suspicious of Jack, Lana decides to step in and solve the case to clear her granddaughter’s name.
The title is misleading as it’s not about the mother & daughter committing murder, it’s about their ritual of watching old re-runs of Colombo on Saturday nights.
I really enjoyed this; it’s a good mix of funny and serious with some OTT but endearing characters and a few red herrings.
4 stars.

I'm Not Done with You Yet by Jesse Q. Sutanto
I previously read Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by this author and gave it 5 stars.
This book is a totally different style, while all the characters in Vera Wong were likeable – none of these are!

The setting is USA & UK and is told in 2 timelines, the current day and 12 years ago when they were all at Oxford University.
Plain Jane meets pretty & social Thalia on their first day of an advanced writing course at Oxford, and becomes infatuated with her. The story goes back and forth between their days at Uni where something awful happened and 12 years later when we find out they haven’t seen each other for 9 years. Both are writers, but Jane is struggling while Thalia has just released a hot new book.
All of the characters are (deliberately) unlikeable, and the fun is watching them try to out manipulate each other.
4 stars.

I also tried for the third time to get into Hello Beautiful but quit again 10% in…I just find the writing so flat and bland that it doesn’t capture my attention or make me want to keep reading. I seem to be the odd one out on this because everyone else seems to love it.

I actually read three this week.

My favorite of the three was The Coworker by Frieda McFadden. As usual, Frieda hit another one out of the ballpark. TW: bullying, mean girls, suicide, murder

Freida does it again! This was a great binge read despite a few minor plot holes. Twisty and turny. 5/5 stars.

Next was Evil Eye by Etaf Rum, the author of A Woman Is No Man. As others have mentioned [on Goodreads], this dragged on and on. The premise was decent, but the execution was lacking. 3.4 stars, rounded down.

And finally, Women of the Post. Interesting fictionalized account of a group of Black women sent to Europe during WW2. Very character-driven with not much action.
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 stars.

I just started The Wishing Game. Finally! Looking forward to it.

Lisa

Free w Kindle Unlimited. Thanks!

The Beach at Summerly by Beatriz Williams 

June 1946. As the residents of Winthrop Island prepare for the first summer season after the sacrifice of war, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family. To Emilia Winthrop, daughter of Summerly’s year-round caretaker and a descendant of the island’s settlers, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of shining possibility. While Emilia spent the war years caring for her incapacitated mother, Olive traveled the world, married fascinating men, and involved herself in political causes. She’s also the beloved aunt of the two surviving Peabody sons, Amory and Shep, with whom Emilia has a tangled romantic history.

As the summer wears on, Emilia develops a deep rapport with Olive, who urges her to leave the island for a life of adventure, while romance blossoms with the sturdy and honorable Shep. But the heady promise of Peabody patronage is blown apart by the arrival of Sumner Fox, an FBI agent who demands Emilia’s help to capture a Soviet agent who’s transmitting vital intelligence on the West’s atomic weapon program from somewhere inside the Summerly estate.

April 1954. Eight years later, Summerly is boarded up and Emilia has rebuilt her shattered life as a professor at Wellesley College, when shocking news arrives from Washington—the traitor she helped convict is about to be swapped for an American spy imprisoned in the Soviet Union, but with a mysterious condition only Emilia can fulfill. A reluctant Emilia is summoned to CIA headquarters, where she’s forced to confront the harrowing consequences of her actions that fateful summer, and a choice that could destroy the Peabody family—and Emilia’s chance for redemption—all over again.


5 stars- I couldn’t put it down. The story sucked me in and I had to know how it ended. 

flanz I just followed up on last week's thread and I saw your recommendation. I have added it to my Goodreads list. Thank you!

I finished Be Not Afraid of Life by William James. It is a collection of essays and lectures given by James on all sorts of philosophic topics related to life/living/death/religion all these fundamental life topics. I have to say that I was enjoying the book until he started to get more into mysticism. That's where the wheels started to go off the bus for me. And in his final essay written while he was dying, he basically ended with a quote that leads me to believe that in the face of his own death, he concluded that much of what he thought about the importance of his life was not any more impressive than his death would be. That his life's work was basically nothing. It was the most disappointing ending I have read in a very long time. I had not read anything by James before this. And it started off so good to flop at the end. I gave it 3 stars.

PERFECTLY NICE NEIGHBORS (‘23 - 4 STARS) BY KIA ABDULLAH
DESCRIPTION : This book was originally titled Those People Next Door when it was released in hard cover in ‘22.
Salma Khatun is hopeful about Blenheim, the suburban development into which she, her husband, and their son have just moved. The Bangladeshi family needs a fresh start, and Blenheim feels like just the place. Soon after they move in, Salma spots her white neighbor, Tom Hutton, ripping out the anti-racist banner her son put in the front garden. Avoiding confrontation, Salma takes the banner inside and puts it in her window. But the next morning, she wakes up to find her window smeared with paint. When she does speak to Tom, battle lines are drawn between the two families. As racial and social tensions escalate and the stakes rise, it’s clear that a reckoning is coming . . . And someone is going to get hurt.

REVIEW :
First three books by this author for me were Next of Kind (‘22 - 3 Stars), Truth Be Told (Zara Kaleel Bk 2 - ‘20 - Read ‘22 - 4 Stars) and Take It Back (Zara Kaleel Bk 1 - ‘20 - Read ‘21 - 4 Stars).

Enjoyed the author’s writing; current issues of racism, social class and social media are addresses. Tensions / retaliations increase rapidly. Many blurred lines in this tale. The two teenage boys in this book behaved so much better than the adults whose actions were so disappointing.



THESE STILL BLACK WATERS (BK 1 JESS LAMBERT) (‘23 - 5 STARS) BY CHRISTINA MCDONALD
DESCRIPTION : Two women struggle toward a dark truth as a killer avenges the sins of the past in a twisting novel of suspense. After a violent home invasion, Neve Maguire returns with her daughter to Black Lake, her childhood summer home, hoping for a fresh start. But when the body of a woman is found floating among the reeds in the lake behind her house, she fears she has made a horrible mistake. Neve is hiding secrets, though. Detective Jess Lambert can tell. Recently back after her own personal tragedy, Jess knows what it’s like to live with skeletons in your closet, and she’s sure Neve has a few of her own.  When another woman’s body is found, Jess and Neve are forced to confront a horrible truth. Because one thing is clear: the darkness of the past is waiting.

REVIEW :
Previous books by this author for me were Do No Harm (‘21 - 4 Stars), Behind Every Lie ('20 - Read '21 - 4.5 Stars) and The Night Olivia Fell ('19 - 4 Stars).

Like the writing like always; lyrical descriptions at times. Tale told from 3 perspectives, one being unknown. Really moved fast for me. Eerie at times which kept me reading to see everyone’s choices and results. Great fast-paced mystery centering around loss and characters’ reactions to that loss. Loved the whole ending. I’ll always remember the line “Do you still feel my hand in yours? I’ll always be there”. Ms. McDonald just keeps getting better and better.

What Lies in Darkness (Bk 2 Jess Lambert) (‘24) will release on 8/6/24.



Have a great reading week !

I've just finished Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll - a novel based on the (fictionalized) final killings of Ted Bundy, although his name is never used. This was an excellent story and I enjoyed the viewpoints that were explored. I expected it to be gory and it really wasn't. 4 stars.

I just finished up this book and whew! It was so very well researched I almost feel a little sick about all the ultra processed food I've eaten in my lifetime. I feel like it would make for a great experiment if I could get a bunch of people to get together and try a month long challenge of eating foods created with only unprocessed single ingredients. I may do it for myself.

Five stars.