March Books

 

The Answer Is ... Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek -- a great book of highlights about a great game-show host who died last year from pancreatic cancer. It made me smile, it made me cry; he challenged me and made me reflect.

MOVIE! I rarely watch movies (like years apart) so I had to make note of this!  Hidden Figures -- since Andrew and I read the book last month, I got the DVD at the library and we watched it tonight (March 1). I'm not a big movie watcher, but it was great! I guess it was even better to me since I'd just read the book within the last couple of weeks. 

The Ex by Alafair Burke -- When her ex-fiancé is questioned for murder, Olivia Randall heads to the police station to see how she can help. She's convinced he's innocent, after all sweet Jack has no dark side, right?

The Divines by Ellie Eaton -- Josephine reflects on her days as a spoiled, bullying, self-conscious boarding school student, her peers, former best friends, roommate, and townies while dealing with a new marriage and later the birth of a child. Not my favorite.

The Choice by Gillian McAllister -- After a woman is harassed at a bar, she feels threatened when she hears someone following her home. (This takes place in London where people walk home.) When she fears this person is going to grab her, she pushes him - hard. And he lands in a heap down 7 stairs. Is he dead? Should she call 999, or hope no one saw her and flee? This book deals with alternating chapters: Reveal and Conceal to show you how it could go either way. Different!

Three Single Wives by Ginai Lamanna -- The story begins with Anna, Eliza, and Penny meeting with self-help author Marguerite Hill when the topic takes a dark turn, discussing how women can be free, even if it involves murder. When someone is later discovered dead, the ladies are questioned by the Los Angeles Police Department in a pretty good, not-too-dark-but-hey-it's-murder whodunit.

Night Road by Kristin Hannah -- After years in foster care, a social worker found greataunt Eva who agreed for Lexi to live with her. Lexi soon becomes friends with Mia, and by extension eventually, her twin brother, Zach. One night their lives change. Pretty good story.

The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames by Justine Cowan  -- The author explores her mother's past and discovers that her mom was a "foundling" in England, and what all that entailed for her. Pretty interesting story of how unwed mothers were treated as well as their children, and the "hope" that getting admittance into a foundling hospital could mean for these children.

From This Moment by Kim Vogel Sawyer -- Jase left his hometown of San Antonio for a small town in Kansas to take a youth pastor job. Lori and Kenzie are best friends in the church Jase attends. As Jase gets to know them, he finds out Kenzie is thinking of going back home to her Amish family, and Lori struggles with her own issues. Of course Jase is struggling with things too...after all his fiancée died in a car accident. Decent book; nothing special, but not bad.

A Dance in Donegal by Jennifer Deibel -- Another decent book; nothing special, but not bad type. Moira gets a job in her mother's home country, Ireland, and struggles with the people in this small village as they seem to know more about her background than she does.

Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris -- Newspaper reporter Ellis Reeds sees a couple of children for sale, and takes a photo that later involves those children becoming better known than planned. Pretty good story.

The Wife by Alafair Burke -- Angela has a past that she wants to keep hidden. A past that has something to do with her disappearance at age 16, and her return three years later with a little child. When her hotshot husband is accused of sexual harrassment and later rape, Angela's privacy may be an issue...and she doesn't want that to happen. Pretty good story.

The Downstairs Neighbor by Helen Cooper -- A psychological thriller, a bit of a mystery among the neighbors when the energetic, sunny, teenage daughter doesn't return from school, and the parents visit the downstairs neighbor and others trying to piece together what happened to Freya. Meanwhile there is a twenty-five years-before storyline involving Kate and her mother, and a cousin who helps Kate in an effort to free Kate's mom from an abusive partner. Good story if you like this type of mystery.

You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen -- After witnessing a suicide while waiting for a subway station, Shay is comforted by two sisters, Cassandra and Jane, who were friends of the deceased. They help her overcome her fear of the subway system, get a new look, and encourage her as she makes life changes. But then some strange things happen. Pretty good psychological thriller.

Long Gone by Alafair Burke -- Alice Humphrey is approached by an art collector with an offer of a dream job. Is this too good to be true? When she goes one morning to meet with the man offering her the job, the new gallery's windows are papered over and the lights are out. Pretty good suspenseful novel. I seem to be reading a lot of these books lately, huh?

The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer -- Eh, not my favorite, but OK. Beth took her little girl, Carmel, to a book fair where she disappeared. The story alternates from both perspectives as time moves on.

Now That You Mention It by Kristan Higgins -- I read this fun book in between sessions with the book below (lawsuit) which was a nice break. A rather cute story about a GI doctor, Nora, who took a leave of absence from her hospital in Boston after an accident. She returned to her hometown, an island off the coast of Maine. There she tries to reconnect with her mom; her niece, Poe, who is staying with Nora's mom; and others. I literally laughed out loud (ok, a bit quietly, but still) at a few places in this book, and I'm not generally an easy one to get to LOL at stuff.  (I'm not particularly difficult, I just don't find things as funny as some people do.) Cute book!  Page 220 still makes me chuckle. After a deer is hit by a car, Nora and her dinner party guests are trying to figure out what to do since the deer is still alive. Nora's mom, a fierce Mainah, figures she will kill it with a knife to put it out of its misery. She will take the fresh meat for use.  One friend says, "'With a little physical therapy, you never know,'" ... "'Could be eating hostas by next week.'"   (Spoiler alert: the deer was able to right itself and ran into the woods). That whole section about the dinner party ... too funny!

Stand Up That Mountain by Jay Erskine Leutze -- "The battle to save one small community in the wilderness along the Appalachian Trail" ; Andrew read this book and even though it's about a lawsuit (shudder), he said it was interesting reading about the fight to stop a rock mine along Hump Mountain in Avery County. The book has interesting tidbits about the history of the region and the author did tell this story in a non-legalese way so it was not too bad.

Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner -- I usually enjoy this author's mysteries, and I liked this new (to me) character, Frankie Elkin, who moves to areas where children have gone missing and works at bars until she feels inclined to move on. This story is mostly in a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation where a lot of Haitian immigrants live. Frankie gets a job and questions people in her quest to find Angelique Badeau. Pretty good story.

Bird In Hand by Christina Baker Kline -- I read a book by her late last year that was really good. This one wasn't bad, but nothing like the other. In it, two couples deal with a book tour about her childhood in the south (Claire), an accident that involves someone getting killed (Alison), and such things. An ok story, an easy read.

Thursday's Children by Nicci French -- Another book in the Frieda Klein series; in this book Frieda is introduced to a former classmate's daughter which eventually leads Frieda back to her hometown, a place she left when she was sixteen. A pretty good story. The scene where her mother died is amusing. Really.

Ruin Falls by Jenny Milchman -- A pretty interesting mystery by an author I've not read before. Liz and Paul along with their children are on the way to his family's farm when their children are missing the next morning! Paul decides to look for them, but then, he stays gone too. Hmmm.

Under the Tulip Tree by Michelle Shocklee -- A few years after the stock market crashed on her sixteenth birthday, Lorena gets a job with the federal government which aims to put writers back to work. She's tasked with getting stories from the formerly enslaved population of Nashville. Pretty good story.

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey -- If you like books about cloning new wives and husbands, you might like this book. It was fairly interesting and bizarre really. I liked it ok, but I'm not going out of my way to read other books by her.

The Moonlight School by Suzanne Woods Fisher -- Inspired by the true story of Cora Williams Stewart, superintendent of schools in Rowan County, Kentucky, this book introduces us to several likeable and fun characters from the mountain community. My favorites were Finley James and Angie Cooper. Lucy travels from Lexington to help her cousin; it's quite an adjustment for this city girl as she learns to visit the hollars by horse. Pretty good story.

The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline -- An interesting story about Evangeline, a governess accused of larceny and murder, who ends up on a boat for Australia as part of England's move-convicts-to-another-place policy in the 1800s. In prison she makes friends with Olive and Hazel and the ship's surgeon. Good book.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin -- Not my usual type of book, but a somewhat interesting look at Truman Capote and his "swans," Babe Pauley, Slim Keith, C.Z. Guest, and so forth. What a lifestyle!

The Switch by Beth O'Leary -- When Leena is given a 2 month paid leave from her job, she visits her grandmother Eileen who, at 79, is looking for love again. Leena decides to sign up her grandmother on a dating website, but finds there are slim pickings nearby. Then Leena decides she and her grandmother should switch places for two months. That's right. Leena took over her grandma's committees and other assignments in her small village while Grandma Eileen moves to London where there are a few more eligible men. Pretty cute, light read.

The Damascus Road by Jay Parini -- This is a novel of Saint Paul that, I believe, Amazon recommended to me, or maybe I saw it mentioned elsewhere. I got it for Christmas, and decided to read it the last couple of days. Pretty interesting to hear the story of Paul told in novel form from the perspectives of both Paul and his traveling companion, Luke.