The Shell House Detectives by Emylia Hall - a series launch

Ally Bright is a recent widow living with her dog in the picturesquely named Shell House on the Cornish coast. Like any of us, she is startled when a young man bangs on her door late at night. It turns out that Ally’s husband Bill, a compassionate policeman, had put this young man in prison but offered to help him when he got out. When Lewis was released, he returned home, only to find that his grandmother’s house is gone – an ostentatious new house, Sea View, has been built there instead.

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord, a YA rom-com

Title: Tweet Cute
Author:  Emma Lord
Publication: Wednesday Books, Hardcover, 2020
Genre: YA

Need to Know (Book Review)

Title: Need to Know
Author: Karen Cleveland
Publication: Ballantine, Hardcover, January 2018
Genre: Suspense

Plot: Vivian is a dedicated CIA analyst who has been working on an algorithm to identify Russian agents in sleeper cells in the US. Anticipating a breakthrough, her blood runs cold when she sees her husband’s name on the list of five names. In an instant, she sees terrible choices before her – to turn in Matt, the beloved father of her four children, or to betray her job and country? Even worse, what if neither choice will keep her or her family safe?

Audience: Fans of psychological suspense; authors such as David Baldacci, Jodi Picoult, Nora Roberts

My Impressions: I loved this fast paced debut thriller about a working mother every reader will find appealing. Vivian is dedicated to her job but finds it stressful, and worries she is shortchanging her children by working long hours. When she sees her husband’s name in an encrypted file, she can’t believe it, yet cannot dismiss it, and is worried about how to bring it up in conversation when she has scrupulously avoided talking about her job and recognizes that accusing your husband of being a Russian spy is - at the very least - a relationship-changer.

Vivian and Matt, their children, and a cast of supporting characters are vividly depicted, making this book impossible to put down. Told alternatively in the terrifying present and in flashbacks recounting how Vivian’s and Matt’s lives came together, this thriller begins with a heart-stopping dilemma and does not slow down until the final page. It is plausible, convincing, and terrifying. It was so nerve-wracking I wished it would end, then wished there had been another hundred pages! It will be great to see how this CIA analyst-turned author develops.

Source: I was provided a pre-publication copy of this book by NetGalley and the publisher for review purposes. This was one of my Best Books of 2017 and will be published this month.

The City Baker's Guide to Country Living (Book Review)

Title: The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living
Author: Louise Miller
Publication: Viking, Hardcover, 2016
Genre: Fiction

Plot: When Olivia Rawlings, pastry chef at an exclusive Boston club, accidentally sets the historic building on fire with a flaming dessert, she more or less loses her job. Humiliated, Livvy flees for comfort to her best friend in Vermont and ends up employed at the nearby Sugar Maple Inn. The curmudgeonly owner is on a quest to regain dominance of a local apple pie contest, and Livvy is up for the challenge, even though they don’t always see eye to eye. Despite her flamboyantly dyed hair and distaste for the country, Livvy makes friends quickly, including a quiet farmer, Martin, and his family who may be the first to make her feel she really belongs somewhere. Can she find lasting happiness in rural Vermont?

Audience: Understood Betsy for grown-ups! Guthrie, Vermont also reminded me of Stars Hollow, although I believe that is supposed to be Washington, Connecticut. Readers who enjoy Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Elinor Lipman should appreciate this debut novel as well.

My Impressions: First of all, I loved the descriptions of food, although it is always a mistake to read a book about food when you haven’t had time to go to the grocery store for days - I was almost ready to gnaw on the book. Second, I loved the quirky, minor characters, including Alfred the chef (I enjoyed how at first they shared the kitchen and communicated without meeting; they communicated beautifully when collaborating as well); Dotty, who welcomes Livvy to family gatherings; Tom who delivers milk and devours Livvy’s cooking; and Margaret, whose gruff demeanor hides the hurt caused by an unrelenting Mean Girl. Finally, as a city girl myself I am always fascinated, if disbelieving, of young women who find fulfillment in rural communities. It is possible that Livvy’s transformation happened too quickly – also, in Boston Livvy wasn’t making enough money to pay her rent so how is that she could be solvent as a pastry chef in Vermont? Admittedly, she was living rent-free in a cottage on the Inn’s premises.

The obstacles between Livvy and Martin seemed contrived, making the last 30% of the book less interesting and satisfying. Either Martin’s motivation was unconvincing or his character was not very likable, I couldn’t decide which.  However, his parents were so sweet they compensated for his unreliability.  I was disappointed with Livvy for not valuing her friend Hannah more. Hannah is loyal in a way few friends are when the BFF and the husband don’t get along.

For another take on Understood Betsy, try the most recent installment of The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick: Mother-Daughter Book Camp.

Source: I learned about this book when I saw it listed on my library website as an “in demand” new release.  I was convinced when I saw it had been edited by my former colleague, Pam Dorman, and I promptly put it on reserve. Later, I learned that Miller is a local author which made the book even more enjoyable. I am enjoying her Instagram posts as well. Recommended!

The Traitor's Story (Book Review)

Title: The Traitor’s Story
Author: Kevin Wignall
Publication: Thomas & Mercer, trade paperback, 2016
Genre: Suspense

Plot: Six years ago, Finn Harrington, a British espionage agent, was about to retire but agreed to take on one last assignment on his way out – it went disastrously bad and he retired to Switzerland. When 15-year-old Hailey Portman disappears, her parents, who live in Finn’s building and heard rumors about his past from an indiscreet girlfriend, ask him to help when the police seem indifferent. Finn has guarded his emotions closely in recent years and is reluctant to get involved but finds himself investigating Hailey’s disappearance. Once he digs into Hailey’s background, he finds chilling evidence of a connection between Hailey and the disastrous events that ended his first career.

Silent City: a Claire Codella Mystery (Book Review)

Title: Silent City: a Claire Codella Mystery
Author: Carrie Smith
Publication: Crooked Lane, Hardcover, 2015
Genre: Mystery/suspense

Plot: Claire Codella, a NYC detective, is returning to her job after successfully battling cancer with months of chemo. On her first day back, she is assigned the murder of an elementary school principal, who was admired by everyone but his own staff. Self-conscious about her changed appearance and wondering if she is really ready for the stresses of the job, Claire is also aware that her supervisor resents the attention she received on an earlier case and will do her no favors if she can’t solve this crime quickly. Partnered with an appealing gay detective, Eduardo Munoz, who is also persona non grata with the bullies at the police precinct, Claire is plunged into the surprisingly cutthroat atmosphere of the Manhattan public school system as she investigates two murders, and navigates her way among teachers, parents, and coworkers.

Audience: Fans of suspense and of female detectives who don’t take garbage from anyone; I was actually reminded more of TV shows like Blue Bloods and NYPD Blue than of current mysteries but maybe that is because the sense of place was so strong.

My Impressions: This is a fast paced debut, full of interesting characters and their interrelationships, with a vivid and gritty New York setting. I like Claire, who has been through a tough time with her cancer treatment – and the one person she thought she could really rely on, her best friend and former partner, Brian Haggerty – never made it inside the hospital to visit her. Claire has learned to rely only on herself, so she has to learn all over again how to trust and when to ask for help or she will not survive a dangerous investigation:

She preferred the truth to gentle fantasy landings. During investigations she always gave the truth – as sensitively as possible, of course – to the families of the violently murdered.

Claire’s candor, her post-treatment symptoms, and her determination to handle a high profile case so well that even her unpleasant boss couldn’t complain make her a very sympathetic heroine.

I wondered if other cancer survivors would be interested in this book and identify with Claire or if they would prefer more escapism in their suspense fiction, so mentioned it to a coworker who fits that category and had just told me she wasn’t reading any more cozies! Well, this is not a cozy – there is plenty of bloodshed and the kind of language you would expect from police, so I am lending her my copy.

I liked the relationship developing between Claire and Munoz (he is taunted so unmercifully by the homophobic detectives in the Manhattan North homicide unit that I wanted to offer my legal services pro bono) and appreciated the desperate shame of her friend Haggerty who knows he let her down when she needed support. Maybe I guessed who the killer was halfway through the book but it was really about more than just finding a killer.   

Author Carrie Smith

Source: I put this on my list after reading a very favorable review in Publishers Weekly, and checked it out from the Brookline Library. According to Smith’s website, a second book is coming in December.  Recommended!

Death at Breakfast (Book Review)

Title: Death at Breakfast
Author: Beth Gutcheon
Publication: William Morrow Hardcover, May 2016
Genre: Fiction

Plot: When Maggie and Hope, two old friends, travel to small town Maine to attend a week of cooking classes at a historic inn, they expect to hang out with other foodies and figure out if they would make good travel companions for more distant trips. However, in the midst of mastering pumpkin polenta, they get entangled in the mysterious murder of an unpleasant Greek-American magnate, and decide their combined common sense and connections can be used to help Hope’s son, Buster, the oddball deputy sheriff, find out what really happened before breakfast at the Oquossoc Mountain Inn.

Audience: fans of witty contemporary fiction; readers who like Elinor Lipman and Laura Zigman

What I liked: What made this book were the quirky friends: Maggie, a retired private school headmistress, and Hope, an affluent divorcee whose children attended the school. They are surprisingly insightful, with complementary strengths, and while the actual mystery was not very hard to figure out, the way they attacked the situation and mingled with hotel guests, staff, and townies was entertaining and got the job done.

As a fan of classic mysteries that take place in an isolated manor house or at a house party, I appreciated the modern setting of a residential, upscale cooking class where the characters are stranded when a murder takes place. A nice touch was that the Inn had poor Internet access, driving all the guests crazy when first they are curious about the obnoxious new guests and then when they want to tell all their friends about the drama taking place at the Inn.

What I disliked: I had a hard time keeping all the characters straight but after a while I figured out which ones were going to matter and all became clear in the last few chapters. I never understood why Hope’s son was so wary of his mother, however. Was it merely self protective because he doesn’t feel he has lived up to her expectations? It was Maggie more than Hope who had been judgmental about him in the past.

Source: This was a fun and different read which I recommend (the food descriptions were an added bonus but I don't read reading while hungry). I have enjoyed books by Gutcheon, a fellow Radcliffe alumna, in the past and had been looking forward to this since I heard about it (and that was before I realized her current editor is my talented friend Jennifer Brehl).

I received a copy of this book from TLC Book Tours in return for an honest review, and suggest that you visit the tour to check out other reviews:

May 10th: A Chick Who Reads
May 11th: Dwell in Possibility
May 12th:  Five Minutes for Books
May 13th: Back Porchervations
May 16th: No More Grumpy Bookseller
May 18th: Booksie's Blog
May 19th: Booked on a Feeling
May 23rd: Books and Bindings
May 24th: From the TBR Pile
May 23rd: Buried Under Books
May 27th: Kritters Ramblings
May 30th: Ms.Bookish.com

The Daughter (Book Review)

Title: The Daughter

Author: Jane Shemilt @janeshemilt

Publication: William Morrow, trade paperback, 2015 (first published in England in 2014)

Genre: Suspense/Fiction

Plot: How well do you really know your family? Jenny thinks she has the perfect life, with a busy medical practice in Bristol, England, a successful surgeon husband, and three teenagers. Of course, she’s busy and tired, but isn’t everyone? Then her daughter Naomi fails to come home one night after starring in West Side Story, and Jenny and her family will never the same again.  Jenny looks at everyone around her with suspicion, blames herself for failing to notice changes in her daughter’s behavior, and can no longer handle everyday life.  She realizes that she will never be able to cope with Naomi’s disappearance until she knows what happened, but her search into Naomi’s last months reveals a girl Jenny barely recognizes.

Audience: Fans of Jodi Picoult, Anita Shreve, Sue Miller

What I liked: The book is well written and deliberately paced, moving back and forth from the days before and just after Naomi’s disappearance to a year afterwards.   Told from Jenny’s perspective, the story begins with what seems like a reasonably happy family but, once Naomi is gone, their apparently perfect life is over, and the tension and suspicions slowly escalates to a controversial conclusion.  The author is especially skillful depicting some minor characters: Jenny’s kindhearted partner in her medical practice, Michael the police/family liaison officer, and a dreadful mother whose daughter was Naomi’s friend – neither mother nor daughter is very willing to help with the investigation.  Parts of the book were very painful to read.

I found Jenny and her family all quite unlikeable.  I don’t require engaging characters in order to enjoy a book but their lack of appeal kept me at a distance and prevented me from being very emotionally involved in Naomi’s disappearance.  To me, that is usually where Jodi Picoult is so successful: even with some of her more outlandish plots, I am usually sufficiently captivated by the people in jeopardy that I can’t stop reading.  Here, I felt sorry for Jenny but I didn’t agonize over her pain.  On the other hand, I did care what happened to her and am indignant on her behalf that the she had very ineffective investigators on the case, not to mention a useless husband.  Overall, an entertaining summer read, helped by the fact that the author is a doctor herself.

Source: I received The Daughter from the TLC Book Tours and invite you to visit the tour to read other reviews of this book.

Tour schedule:

March 3rd: A Bookish Way of Life
March 4th: Kahakai Kitchen
Marcy 5th: Read. Write. Repeat.
March 6th: Sara’s Organized Chaos
March 10th: My Book Retreat
March 10th: No More Grumpy Bookseller
March 11th: FictionZeal
March 12th: Svetlana’s Reads and Views
March 17th: A Bookworm’s World
March 18th: The Well-Read Redhead 
May 27th: Living in the Kitchen with Puppies

May 28th: Mockingbird Hill Cottage

June 1st: Book Loving Hippo

June 3rd: Booked on a Feeling

June 10th: The many thoughts of a reader

June 18th: Priscilla and Her Books

Early Decision (Book Review)

Title: Early Decision
Author: Lacy Crawford

Publication Information:  William Morrow, Trade Paperback, 2014 (originally published 2013)

Genre: Fiction

Plot: Anne Arlington is the brilliant young woman who advises (mostly) affluent high school seniors on the perfect essay that will make the difference in their college applications.  But while Anne is gifted at helping an inarticulate student find his or her voice (and thus the way to an admissions officer’s heart), she lacks confidence in every aspect of her life – career, boyfriend, and dealing with neighbors and parents.  Distracted by parents zealous on behalf of their privileged children, when will she be able to figure out the key to her own success?

Audience: Fans of chick lit; parents of high school seniors; anyone who remembers procrastinating about college applications

What I liked:  I could not put the book down, although as an alumni interviewer for Harvard myself, there was not much in it that was new to me.  I have often heard that a great essay can make the difference for an applicant, and I enjoyed how this story was told by looking at several different (and surprisingly appealing) applicants in a combination of narrative and essays.  It was extremely funny while simultaneously convincing and at times horrifying.  I am not sure I have met any parents as dreadful as those in this book but I have seen lots of people lose all sense of proportion during their children’s application process.   And in NYC where I used to live the competition begins with preschool admissions, long before college! 

What I disliked: I didn’t understand why Anne was so ashamed of her job, given that admissions consultants can be well paid and successful, and she was clearly very skilled.  Nor did I understand the appeal of her boyfriend, so wondered why she put up with him so long.  She suffered from working at home and not having any friends her own age except former grad school acquaintances.  I got depressed reading about her depression, and was impatient for her to come to her senses. 

Source:  I received Early Decision from the TLC BookTours and recommend it as a fun read.  Click here to buy a copy.   I also urge you to stop by the tour to learn more about the author and see what other reviewers had to say about this book.