Favorite Reads of 2019

Happy New Year and wishing you many delightful reads in 2020! I am enjoying seeing other people's "Best of" year-end lists, even when I haven't read any of their books.  There is always room on my TBR pile for books that sound appealing.

Historical Fiction

Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pearce (2018)
This wound up being my favorite book of the year!  A warm and emotional story of a young woman who yearns to be a war correspondent during WWII but finds a job instead working on advice magazine during the day (what the Brits call an Agony Aunt) while doing her bit for the war at night as bombs fall.  You know how much I like books with WWII settings but some have become almost a cliche of tired plots.   This was fresh and appealing, humorous at times, heartbreaking at others, and altogether delightful. Those who remember Dear Lovey Hart will love it.

Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Title: Through the Evil Days 
Author:  Julia Spencer-Fleming

Publication: St. Martin’s/Minotaur, hardcover, 2013

Genre: Mystery

Plot: In the tense and emotional eighth book of the series, Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne and Reverend Clare Fergusson are finally married but their lives remain professionally and personally complicated.  Clare is pregnant (as we learned at the very end of the last book), Russ is unhappy about becoming a parent at what he considered his advanced age, and a fire and related kidnapping threatens to derail their postponed honeymoon.  In the meantime, Hadley Knox, a relatively recent addition to the Millers Kill police force, is somewhat regretting having blown off coworker Kevin Flynn merely because he’s younger and she is getting over a bad divorce (soon she will have real problems!).   When Russ and Clare finally leave town for a week to “enjoy” an isolated cottage convenient to ice fishing (my idea of hell), they find the criminals are hiding out nearby.  Marooned by bad weather, Russ and Clare are caught between old rivalries and new enemies.

My Impressions: Despite the fact that Julia Spencer-Fleming is one of my favorite authors, I somehow had been saving this so long for a special occasion that I hadn’t read even read it! (I suspect my mother borrowed it and did not return it promptly but it is nice that she and my sisters and I all like this author so much.)  I reread One Was a Soldier to get in the mood – that is really exceptionally well done with flashbacks that advance the plot instead of exasperating the reader (a pet peeve) and vivid characters.   While I enjoyed this one, I had a hard time following the plot and need to reread it to fully grasp what was going on.  Russ is a pain for most of the book but I especially like Hadley and Kevin and was hoping things would work out for them: great cliffhanger ending!

One advantage of waiting this long to read Through the Evil Days is that her new book, Hid from Our Eyes, is coming out in April!   I had missed the sad news that Ms. Spencer-Fleming lost her husband in 2017; I am sure that getting back to writing after such a loss is much harder than simply going back to an office, so I am glad she was able to finish a new book and I hope it was a good distraction for her.

This is the tenth of twelve books that are part of my 2019 TBR Challenge, inspired by Adam at Roof Beam Reader, to prioritize some of my unread piles.  Two more to read by the end of the year!

Off the Blog: Merry Impeachmas!

Source: I highly recommend this series but do suggest you begin at the beginning with In the Bleak Midwinter.  My mother and I enjoyed meeting Julia Spencer-Fleming at the Brookline Library several years ago and I thus own an autographed hardcover.  She told us her daughter was studying for an MLIS at Simmons, making a tough commute down from Maine.  My mother, a (retired) librarian, sympathized as she commuted to URI while earning her library degree.  

Virtual Advent Calendar

Thank you to Sprite Writes for including me in the Virtual Advent Tour she has organized for five years. For those who don’t know, Advent is the liturgical season leading up to Christmas which includes the four preceding Sundays. 

Can you guess?  See below.

This post is about a family tradition started by my father, who we lost three years ago.  I think about him whenever I wrap a present because, although he was not good at shopping, when he came up with a gift he enjoyed making tricky tags!  He would add a message to the tag but put dashes instead of some of the letters so the recipient would have to guess what was inside.   The first one I remember was a little datebook when I was in high school or college, with a tag said something like, “For CLM, so she will K _ _ W   WH _  _  E  TO  G _.

They got more complicated over the years and the rest of the family occasionally joins in.  You have to strike the right balance between a little mystery but not so obscure no one can hazard a guess! 

I think Buddy was telling me to look in the box for some awesome gardener's gloves that go practically to my elbows, protecting me from poison ivy!   (Not that they keep the plants alive - now, that would be quite a gift!)

I found this one from several years ago stuck to some wrapping paper.  I am trying to guess what it stands for!  We'll have to see if my brother remembers.

* * *

Answer to Samantha's tag:  Quiet Moment.  Yes, any working mother with three children and a dog finds that quiet moments are in short supply. 

The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin

Title: The American Heiress

Author:  Daisy Goodwin

Publication: St. Martin’s, paperback, 2010

Genre: Historical Fiction

The American Heiress is the ninth of twelve books that are part of my 2019 TBR Challenge, inspired by Adam at Roof Beam Reader, to prioritize some of my unread piles.  I have another one read but not yet reviewed and two more to read by December 31st.  Can she do it?

Plot: Cora Cash is the beautiful daughter of an affluent and ambitious mother, who wants English nobility for a son-in-law.  Following a glamorous (although marred by a fire) ball in Newport, Cora leaves behind her local admirers and heads to England with her mother and her shrewd black maid, Bertha.  Conveniently, Cora immediately encounters a very eligible bachelor, the Duke of Wareham, who is high on pedigree but low on cash, and unenthusiastically recognizes an opportunity when he sees one.  The reader, if not Cora, anticipates the obstacles in the way of turning a marriage of convenience into a relatively happy union (condescending servants, jilted lovers, shrewish mother-in-law, poor heating) but there is more to Cora than desire for status.   Cora slowly learns how to defend herself and begins to figure out what she needs to do to master her new position, act befitting a duchess, and cope with her moody husband in what turns out to be an entertaining novel. 

Six Degrees of Separation: from Sanditon to Mrs. Tim Christie

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

Sanditon, the unfinished Jane Austen, was Kate’s starting book. I read this long ago and unfortunately don’t remember it at all.  However, I am looking forward to the new dramatization on Masterpiece Theatre beginning January 12, 2020.

Joan Aiken came to mind because I thought she had completed Sanditon, but "her" Austen is Emma Watson, The Watsons Completed, which is my first book (not to be confused with actress Emma Watson!). 

The Long Call by Ann Cleeves

Title: The Long Call, Two Rivers #1 
Author:  Ann Cleeves

Publication: Minotaur Books, hardcover, October 2019

Genre: Mystery/series

Plot: In the first of a new series, Matthew Venn, a Detective Inspector in North Devon is watching his father’s funeral from a distance when, moments later, he learns a body has been found near the home he shares with his husband, Jonathan.  Matthew became estranged from his family due to his rejection of his parents’ evangelical religion, the Barum Brethren, but he puts his familial angst away to investigate the crime, or so he thinks.  As Matthew and his team examine the death there are so many conflicts of interest that he suspects he should remove himself from the case: the fact that the body was found so close to his home, several connections to the Woodyard, the art/day center that Jonathan manages, and the appearance of members of the Brethren.

My Impressions: The day they found the body on the shore, Matthew Venn was already haunted by thoughts of death and dying.

What a first sentence!  This is a very dark and atmospheric new mystery from popular Ann Cleeves, whose other books I have enjoyed.  Matthew Venn is one of the most serious protagonists I can remember reading about and he struggles with a feeling of unworthiness although he is handsome, accomplished, and has a job at which he is skilled.  The story is set in a town in North Devon, near two rivers, the Taw and the Torridge that run into the Atlantic Ocean.  Matthew and Jonathan live in a house on the estuary they got at a bargain price because it might be obliterated in a flood.   The isolation suits Matthew but Jonathan is gregarious and popular; in fact, Matthew is constantly amazed someone so confident would be attracted to him.  This insecurity threatens to derail Matthew from the hunt for the killer but ultimately he triumphs.

In this book, even more than her others, I am impressed by the detailed depiction of minor characters, particularly Lucy and her father Maurice, and Jen Rafferty, the appealing sergeant who works for Matthew.  I had been angry with Cleeves for a plot development in her Shetland Island series but I suppose I am over it by now.  In fact, she was in Greater Boston recently promoting this book and I was disappointed not to be able to attend.

Off the Blog: Enjoying Thanksgiving leftovers in Rye, NY and working on my Nancy Drew paper.

Source:  Thanks to NetGalley for this read.  Recommended!

Back to Frederica by Georgette Heyer, Chapters 18-21

For those who wondered what had happened to the discussion of Frederica, I thought I should finish posting:

Image borrowed from https://tinyurl.com/yj6en84b

Chapter 18

After seeing Felix successfully wheedle Alverstoke and hearing that Jessamy is exercising his precious horses, Lady Elizabeth is dying of curiosity and rushes to see her elder sister, Lady Jevington, for her opinion of the Merrivilles.   Eliza reveals that Lady Jersey wrote to her, predicting Alverstoke would marry Charis and that Alverstoke painted her in the most glowing terms.  Lady Jevington says Alverstoke was hoaxing her: “But unless I am much mistaken it is the elder and not the younger sister for whom he has conceived a decided tendre.” 

Five Things

I was in Denver this week for work and had a lovely dinner with six other Betsy-Tacy fans.  One told me she had just finished reading Meet the Malones and she wrote about it here.  Don’t you love a convert?

 

Somehow I found myself vacuuming under and behind my bed recently!   Don’t worry, it probably won’t happen again due to the fact I found ONE jade earring bought in Canada at a friend’s wedding.   I am afraid the other one was vacuumed.   Is it worth going through the vacuum bag to check?  Even if I find it, would it be too gross to ever wear again?

A Killer in King's Cove by Iona Whishaw

Title: A Killer in King’s Cove: A Lane Winslow Mystery
Author:  Iona Whishaw
Publication: Touchwood Editions, paperback, 2016
Genre: Historical Mystery/series
Setting: Canada, 1946

Plot: Lane Winslow wanted to get away from London after the horrors of the war but no one was expecting her to take her modest inheritance and buy a home in western Canada.  In King’s Cove, a small town in British Columbia, Lane is welcomed by her new neighbors. 

What is a Lib Guide?

Curious about the History of Children's Literature class I have been taking this fall? 

Last week's assignment was to create a LibGuide, which is basically a subject guide that pulls together all types of information about a particular subject or course of study.  I decided to do mine on children's fantasy, so I researched and included nonfiction reference books and encyclopedias, articles, websites, and some of my favorite books in the genre. I suppose it is really just a bibliography with images. I had fun finding all the covers, including the one below from an edition I own:

It will be interesting to see what my professor thinks of my choices!  For those interested, the text we are using is Children's Literature by Seth Lerer.

Here is the link: Fantasy Lib Guide

Six Degrees of Separation: From Alice to The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month the book is Alice in Wonderland.  I have very pleasant memories, not only of reading it but my grandmother gave me LP versions of Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass which I listened to often as a child on my own little record player.  At one point, I could quote long passages.  Prior to this gift, I will admit I'd thought the book was called Allison Wonderland. 

Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, and Aloysius
(copyright Granada Television)

Alice made me think of my first book which begins in Oxford: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. When I visited Oxford, reminders of both books were everywhere!  Brideshead is one of the few books of which I consider the miniseries as good or better.  It really captivated viewers when it first came out, including me.  Oh, Anthony Andrews, I could watch you in anything!   In fact, I loved you in a movie of my second book:

Cart and Cwidder (Dalemark Quartet, Book 1) by Diana Wynne Jones

Title: Cart and Cwidder, Dalemark Quartet, Book 1
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Publication: Greenwillow, hardcover, 1975
Genre: Children’s Fantasy

Plot: Clennen, his wife Lenina, and their three children are traveling musicians, and among the few who move between the North and South regions of Dalemark. His parents deliver messages and gossipy news as they travel and sometimes take passengers with them. There are political overtones: the South is more restrictive and “[y]ou dared not put a good, or a word, out of place for fear of being clapped in jail.”

Avalon by Anya Seton

Title: Avalon
Author: Anya Seton
Publication: Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 1965
Genre: Historical Fiction

Avalon is the eighth of twelve books that are part of my 2019 TBR Challenge, inspired by Adam at Roof Beam Reader, to prioritize some of my unread piles. It is one of Seton’s lesser-known titles and I have owned it for years without getting around to reading it.

Plot: When Rumon, a young man of noble birth, descended from Charlemagne, leaves his home in Provence to seek the source of his visions, his goal is Avalon, the legendary island featured in Arthurian legend. Instead, he is shipwrecked in Cornwall, where he meets a girl called Merewyn, whose father was killed by Vikings before she was born. Promising her dying mother he will deliver Merewyn to an aunt, an abbess at a convent, they set off to the court of King Edgar. The politics of court and of the church, anchored by Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, provide the counterpoint to the odd friendship that connects Rumon and Merewyn. Both young people are dazzled by Edgar’s queen, Alfrida, which prevents Rumon from recognizing Merewyn’s devotion as she becomes a young woman capable of great love. Because he alone knows the secret of her birth, he considers her unworthy. However, once Rumon realizes that he cares for her, he pursues Merewyn, making a perilous journey across the Atlantic to Iceland, believing he needs to rescue her.

My Impressions: This is another compelling historical novel by the talented Anya Seton and, as with Dragonwyck and My Theodosia, it provides a vivid picture of a little known period, including some real characters, such as St. Dunstan, Leif Erikson, and Ethelred the Unready.  Seton has an uncanny

Merewyn would likely freeze in this outfit

ability to bring history to life, although there are fewer appealing characters and what seems like more violence than in Katherine, one of my (and many others') all-time favorites. Still, it is a great read for historical fiction fans and I could not put it down. As usual, Seton’s sweeping narrative carries the reader along, even when the main protagonist is considered a wimp by reader and Vikings alike:

“And I think that Rumon will always be wanting what he cannot find, and that if he finds what he thought he wanted he will be disappointed. As he is now.” She tried to smile but tears came into her eyes...

Does a real hero always know what he wants? Merewyn’s observation is accompanied by the Vikings’ contempt for someone who won’t fight and who “sounded abject” when he spoke to a mere woman. Rumon is a "Searcher" of visions but is not capable of seeing beyond his own nose.   Still, I give Rumon credit for a three-year quest to find Merewyn, although his overweening pride prevented him from appreciating her when she was close at hand.

Off the Blog: This review is a break from a weekend creating what my History of Children’s Literature professor calls a LibGuide. I chose children’s fantasy literature as my topic and will add a link once complete.

Source: Personal copy

A Bitter Feast by Deborah Crombie

Title: A Bitter Feast
Author:  Deborah Crombie
Publication: William Morrow, hardcover, October 2019
Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Series

Plot: Melody Talbot’s parents are hosting a benefit at their home in the Cotswolds, and when Melody invites her boss, Detective Inspector Gemma James, Gemma’s husband Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid, and their three children for the weekend, everyone expects a relaxing sojourn in a picturesque part of England. 

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene #1930Club

The 1930 Club is a meme started by Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy's Book Ramblings that explores a specific year of published books.

Title: The Secret of the Old Clock 
Author:  Carolyn Keene

Publication: Grosset and Dunlap, hardcover, 1930

Genre: Children’s mystery/series

Plot: When Nancy Drew, the attractive 18-year-old daughter of accomplished lawyer Carson Drew, starts investigating the estate of recently deceased Josiah Crowley, she learns she has the makings of a fine detective!   Nancy encounters several families who innocently thought they would inherit modest amounts of money from him; instead, Crowley seems to have left everything to the disagreeable Topham family.  Encouraged by her father, Nancy scrutinizes Crowley’s activities before he died in the hope of finding a more recent will.   Her curiosity leads her to new friends, old rivals, antique thieves, lunch with a prominent judge, being locked in a closet, the secret of the old clock, and a career as a dashing sleuth.

My Impressions: Devouring Nancy Drew is or used to be a rite of passage for girls who read. The expectation is that you move on to less formulaic books and you forget about Nancy, Carson, housekeeper Hannah Gruen, Bess, George, and Ned Nickerson (well, Ned wasn’t very memorable in the first place).  So I was impressed several years ago when there was a flurry of articles which revealed several of our Supreme Court justices had been big Nancy Drew fans: Sandra Day O’Conner, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Sonia Sotomayor.

I too read every Nancy Drew I could find after an aunt gave me a copy of The Clue in the Diary when I was in third grade.   

However, The Secret of the Old Clock is particularly significant because it is the first book in the famous series and because the actual mystery is fairly memorable.  Spoiled rich people inherited money they didn’t need while those left in the lurch were hard-working and deserving. Learning about wills and how   they had to be witnessed and produced when someone died was fascinating to me, as was Nancy’s compassion and her sense of justice. Neither the justices nor I knew back then that author Carolyn Keene didn’t exist, and that Nancy was the product of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a New Jersey-based book packagers also responsible for the Rover Boys (I inherited these from my father), Hardy Boys, Happy Hollisters (these I ordered by mail because I wanted the secret decoder that came with the first book), and much more.

1930 was the launch of a dynasty as Nancy Drew would be hugely successful with more than 70 million copies sold, not to mention movie and TV spinoffs (including a new show on the CW just this month - I watched for 10 minutes - it was dreadful), merchandise, and more.  At 8 or 9, I didn't notice the formulaic plots librarians disliked.  I enjoyed the way Nancy dashed about in her shiny convertible, intrepid and confident, although I will admit I sometimes preferred the Dana Girls, also produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, about sisters at boarding school who solved mysteries.   But when I found a Dana Girls book at a Cape Cod rental and read it to my nieces a couple years ago, they laughed hysterically at nearly every sentence, so I have to admit it did not hold up well.  

Off the Blog: I am taking a History of Children’s Literature class and just got permission from my professor to write my term paper about Nancy Drew!  I need to fine-tune the topic first . . .  Let me know if you have any suggestions that haven’t been done to death.

Source: I gave all my Nancy Drews to my niece Katherine so got this from the library.  I love that it is the very edition I first read from the John Ward School library. 

Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield #1930Club

The 1930 Club is a meme started by Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy's Book Ramblings that explores a specific year of published books.  This inspired me to chose a book I had always meant to read, set in one of my favorite fictional places, a small English village.

Title: Diary of a Provincial Lady
Author: E.M. Delafield (1890–1943)
Publication: Academy Chicago Publishers, trade paperback, 2002 (1930)
Genre: Fiction

Plot: The book is a somewhat autobiographical diary of the life of an upper-middle-class Englishwoman living mostly in a Devon village in the 1930s, with a grumpy husband, two young children (one of whom attends boarding school), a large awkward house, a number of servants, and many acquaintances (although only one real friend).

The Goldsmith’s Treasure by August Šenoa (book review)

Title: The Goldsmith’s Treasure
Author: August Šenoa (1838 – 1881)
Translator: Neven Divjakinja
Publication: Spiritoso (Zagreb), hardcover, English edition 2015 (1871)
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Zagreb, 1574-79

August Šenoa

Plot: This is a Croatian story of forbidden love between Dora Krupiceva, the Goldsmith’s daughter, a beautiful and devout young woman, and Pavao Gregorijanec, willful son of Lord Stjephko.

Six Degrees of Separation - from The Women in the Castle to Shadow Castle

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo was Kate’s starting book this month.  Unusually, I hadn’t heard of it and when I took a look it was definitely not my thing.   However, it made me think of my first book, which is about three women living in close quarters after WWII:

 

Dog is Love by Clive Wynne

I have not read this new book about dogs, “Dog Is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You,” which argues that they are special because of their ability to form affectionate relationships with other species (as seems obvious), but I really enjoyed the Washington Post review.

I am currently studying Aesop’s Fables and anthropomorphism in a History of Children’s Literature class so it caught my eye that the author emphasized evidence that dogs can form loving relationships, rejecting feel good anthropomorphism about one’s pet.   After all, I love my brother’s dog Chloe and I know she is always pleased to see me, but surely it is because she recognizes I will feed or walk or make a fuss over her?   Author Clive Wynne states:

I’m not saying human and dog love are identical. I’m just saying there’s enough similarity between how dogs form strong emotional bonds and how people form strong emotional bonds that it’s fair enough to use the love word.

Wynne describes an awesome experiment intended to gauge dogs’ active affection for their people.   They put the pets’ people into a box and had them call out in distress.   All the dogs seemed upset about this but only 1/3 could figure out how to open the box to rescue her owner.    But then they fine-tuned the experiment by starting with the same box but putting food in it and training the dogs to open the box to get the food out.   Subsequently, nearly every dog was able to use its skills to open the box to free its person.   Not sure that is love but it certainly intelligence!

My furry niece Chloe

Not every dog is Lassie or Timmy, capable of daring rescues, but we sure want them to be!   Do you love your dog?  Does your dog love you?

Murder at Brightwell by Ashley Weaver

Title: Murder at Brightwell
Author: Ashley Weaver
Publication: St. Martin’s/Minotaur Books, Hardcover, 2014
Genre: Historical mystery/series
Setting: 1932 England

Plot: Amory Ames is a confident member of society who is unhappy in her marriage, although she doesn’t know what changed after she fell in love with dashing Milo.   When her former fiancé Gilmore Trent asks her help to prevent his sister from marrying a similar marriage to a charming but unreliable man, Amory feels it is her duty to help Gil discourage Emmeline’s relationship with Rupert Howe. Amory does not realize that joining a group at the Brightwell Hotel on England’s south coast without her husband may damage her reputation.  Even worse, when Howe is murdered, Gil is suspected, Milo appears, Emmeline is devastated, and Amory feels she must help the police find the killer.

American Heiress by ?

Quelle coïncidence!   I found myself reading three books with the same title!  This is Book Serendipity!

The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin has been on my TBR pile for quite a while.  In fact, it is part of my Roof Beam Reader Challenge and I plan to read it in the next several weeks.  It is about a Newport heiress (think Consuelo Vanderbilt or Lady Grantham) brought to England by her mother to marry into the aristocracy at the end of the 19th century.

The other two came from the library.  The American Heiress by Dorothy Eden, set slightly later, is also about a rich young American woman destined to marry an English lord - until she sets sail on the Lusitania in 1916.  Clemency does not survive but her maid does, and begins an impersonation that will change her life - if she survives.    I may have read this in my teens but that didn't stop me from devouring the entire book in an evening earlier this week!

Finally, my classmate Jeff Toobin's book, American Heiress, about Patty Hearst was chosen by my book group this month.  I will have to hustle to finish this before the Reading Group meets on October 2nd!

By the way, you cannot copyright a title. . .

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

Title: Those Who Save Us 
Author: Jenna Blum

Publication: Harcourt, Trade Paperback, 2004

Genre: Historical Fiction

This is the seventh of twelve books that are part of my 2019 TBR Challenge, inspired by Roof Beam Reader, to prioritize some of my unread books.

Plot: In this dual time frame novel, the author moves back and forth from 1993 Minnesota where Trudy Swenson is a tenured professor of German History, who just lost her stepfather, and World War II Germany where Trudy’s mother, lovely Anna Brandt, grew up in an atmosphere of fear and repression, forced to desperate measures to stay alive and protect her small daughter. 

Six Degrees of Separation: From Masha to Hungry Monkey

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

Kate chose A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles as the starting book for September. I read this in 2018 with my book group and liked it even more than his first book (despite the use of the present tense which I dislike).  Our mothers were actually college classmates at Radcliffe.

She's the Worst by Lauren Spieller

Title: She’s The Worst
Author: Lauren Spieller
Publication: Simon & Schuster, hardcover, September 2019
Genre: YA

Plot: Sisters April and Jenn haven’t been close in years. Jenn’s too busy with school, the family antique shop, and her boyfriend, and April would rather play soccer and hang out with the boy next door.

But when April notices her older sister is sad about staying home for college, she decides to do something about it. The girls set off to revive a pact they made as kids: spend an epic day exploring the greatest hits of their childhood and all that Los Angeles has to offer.

Then April learns that Jenn has been keeping a secret that could rip their family—and their feuding parents—apart. With only one day to set things right, the sisters must decide if their relationship is worth saving, or if the truth will tear them apart for good.

Giveaway: Win one of two finished copies (8/28-9/16/19, US only) here: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Favorite Quotes: April: “Maybe I was listening,” I tell Jenn, “but it’s only because you were so sneaky.” When she doesn’t stop glaring at me, I add, “I could barely hear anyway.”

April: “Jenn started talking about how she wanted to go away to college even though she’d only just graduated from middle school. Back then she wanted to go to Michigan or Illinois or something, which I remember thinking was really far. Like, why not go to Antarctica while you’re at it? But then she got very serious all of a sudden, and said we should promise each other that in four years, when she was leaving for college, we’d spend the entire day together. Just us. To, you know, say goodbye. So we did a pinkie swear . . . and that was it.”

April: Nate’s voice sneaks its way into the back of my mind. Don’t assume the worst. This might work out if you give it a chance. I take a deep breath, and try my best to put my faith into Nate’s imaginary advice. Tomorrow is going to be good. Better than good. It’s going to be great. I’m going to get my sister back. I just have to give her – give us – a chance.

Jenn: I don’t know what surprises me more. That April remembered the pact we made as kids, or that she actually wanted to do it.

Jenn: I know April’s mad, but even though she doesn’t understand why I did what I did, surely she can see how important this is to me. How badly I need to get away. How sick I am of being in charge of everything, how much I hate constantly taking care of Mom and Dad, how sometimes my life here makes me want to scream –

Jenn: Except there's also another possibility.  They could listen.  If that happens, then they'll know the truth.  They'll be forced to start it in the face and grapple not only with how they've been making me feel, but how dysfunctional things are between them.  I know that's the whole point of telling them - to clear the air so we can fix things.  But sitting here, watching them make dinner, I'm not sure I can do it.  I've spent so long keeping the peace between them.  If I shatter it now and everything falls apart, it'll be my fault.

Author Lauren Spieller (Dave Cross Photography)

My Impressions: This is a very readable and convincing story, which explores the complications of family over slightly more than a day.  Jenn and April are about as different as sisters can be, and Spieller captures the dynamics of sibling relationships, the miscommunications and distorted memories of the same events, as well as how good intentions can go awry. It was particularly poignant how some of April’s recollections of things she had done with Jenn were incomplete: for example, the Ferris Wheel ride that April remembered as magical had actually ended with her vomiting on her sister. As the sisters grew apart in adolescence, there were faults on both sides.  There wasn't much romance (two very unsatisfactory male characters offset by a very sweet boy next door) but it was refreshing to have the focus of a YA book be on the family relationships.

The sisters in my family were all more like Jenn than April, organized, academically focused, and goal-oriented, so I identified more with Jenn and was exasperated with her parents. I was impressed that Jenn filled out all the financial aid forms for Stanford on her own. Jenn’s and April’s parents were over the top awful. Ignoring their inability to stop arguing in front of their children and customers, their poor business skills, their neglect of April and insensitivity to Jenn, they lack any kind of thought for their children’s future. Even if they had good reasons to insist that Jenn stay close to home for college (and finances could have been one of them), the idea that someone should turn down Stanford to attend community college seemed absurd.   (It's also implausible that Jenn could have gotten so close to college move-in day without having paid her room and board - I hate loose ends like this.)

Purchase Links: IndieBound * Barnes & Noble * Amazon * iTunes * Book Depository

Off the Blog: It is Labor Day weekend and I am filling out my Summer Reading Bingo card. Aren’t you glad summer reading isn’t just for children?

Source: I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and the Fantastic Flying Book Club for review purposes. You can visit other stops on the tour and read the reviews by clicking here.

The Crystal Snowstorm by Meriol Trevor

Title: The Crystal Snowstorm (Letzenstein Chronicles #1)
Author: Meriol Trevor
Publication: Bethlehem Books, trade paper, 1997
Genre: Children’s Historical Fiction

About the Author: Meriol Trevor (1919–2000), who graduated from St. Hugh’s College, Oxford in 1942, was a prominent 20th-century Catholic writer of adult and children’s fiction, having converted as an adult. She is best known for an award-winning biography of Cardinal Newman. As a child, she and her best friend created imaginary islands with complicated royal genealogies, which later inspired the Letzenstein Chronicles, although this series was not published until Trevor was in her 70s. Like C.S. Lewis, she used fantasy to show the values of her faith and religion. Scott, I see she is on your list, so I will be interested to see what you think of her adult work (when you get there).

The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane by Julia Nobel

Title: The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane
Author:  Julia Nobel
Publication: Sourcebooks, hardcover, 2019
Genre: Children’s Fiction/School Story

Plot: When Emmy’s child-psychologist-expert mother gets an opportunity to host a reality show, she ships Emmy off to boarding school in England called Wellsworth, which has ornate buildings and a secret society with an ominous history. 

Set in Stone by Robert Goddard

Title: Set in Stone
Author: Robert Goddard
Publication: Corgi Books, Paperback, 2000 (1999)
Genre: Literary suspense
TBR Challenge: This is the fifth of twelve books I am determined to read by the end of the year. Thanks to Roof Beam Reader for suggesting that we focus on some of the books we own and haven’t made time to read.

Plot: Recovering from his wife’s unexpected death, Tony Sheridan goes to stay with his sister-in-law Lucy and her husband (his best friend), and becomes obsessed, as they are, with their new home in the country, Otherways. The house is strikingly designed as a circular stone house with a narrow moat but has a dark history that affects its current occupants. All three experience vivid and unnerving dreams, not only about each other but also about a murder committed there in 1939. Tony is attracted to Lucy, who reminds him so much of his wife, but leaves her to investigate the circumstances surrounding the old murder – believing it is the key to the house’s dark secrets.


My Impressions: Goddard is known for literary thrillers, usually involving a very complicated mystery with origins in the deep past, and is sometimes compared to Daphne du Maurier for his intricate plotting and storytelling. Every time you try to absorb the revelation of a secret he reveals another. Trying to keep up with his multi-layered plots can be exhausting and I am still not sure I completely understood the ending of this one or appreciated the supernatural elements.  If you read John Verney’s Calendar series in your youth, you are well prepared for this author!
 
Several publishers have got behind Goddard in the US but he has never become as popular here as in the UK, which is a pity, because there are a lot of commercial thrillers but not a lot of literary suspense and he does it very well. I have been hooked since finding one of his first books, In Pale Battalions, in Bantam’s International Department in my first week of publishing (he is still published by Corgi. Last year, when I visited Topping & Co. Booksellers in Ely, I was excited to learn they were hosting Goddard for a booksigning a week or so later. I was tempted to request a personally autographed copy of his newest book but felt it would have been more meaningful if secured in person.

Off the Blog: A most unfortunate collision between my oven and my beloved cake carrier has left my house smelling like melted plastic, with no one to blame but myself.

Source: Personal copy

Six Degrees of Separation: From Life After Life to The Luckiest Girl

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month it’s a wild card – the chain begins with the book that ended our July reading, which means that my starting book is Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (2013).

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Title: Life After Life 
Author:  Kate Atkinson

Publication: Hardcover, 2014

Genre: Historical Fiction

TBR Challenge:  This is the fourth book I have read in my self-selected 2019 Challenge, created by Roof Beam Reader.

Plot: Born in 1910, Ursula Todd is the third child in an English family who experiences every scenario possible in the first half of the 20^th century, with a twist.   Ursula is doomed to live her life again and again, each version ending in unexpected death through a variety of sometimes (but not always) avoidable scenarios.   For example, in one episode, an obnoxious friend of her brother’s kisses her on her 16^th birthday, leading to all sorts of disaster, including spousal abuse.  In other lives, Ursula sometimes has a strange sense of déjà vu, so the next time this guy tries to manhandle her she pushes back, thus avoiding that particular fate but, of course, creating another.  The entire book is about fate and how it is unavoidable in one form or another, all unpredictable.