Nevermore opened with
praise for Jennifer Boylan’s Long Black Veil. The story revolves around six college
students who sneak into an abandoned prison on a lark. The situation turns deadly, and the survivors
find their lives forever changed. Thirty years later, a police officer arrests
one of the former students, and another is faced with revealing secrets that
could ruin her life. The story moves
back and forth from 1980 to the present day, and one thing our reader found
most intriguing was simply realizing how much social norms have changed in that
relatively small period of time. She
said it was a good, scary book that reminded the reader that secrets will come
out.
The Hot
Zone by Richard Preston was the next book
up. Our reader had lived near Reston,
Virginia at one point, so the implications hit home for her. The story is divided between a history of how
the ebola virus was discovered and a frightening incident that occurred in a
Reston lab in 1989. Our reader said it a
thrilling, terrifying book, and she recommended it to the others.
A Nigerian musician
in exile receives a letter from his girlfriend that causes him to return home
in the debut novel Taduno’s Song by Odafe Atogun. Once there, he discovers no one remembers
him, that his identification is all gone, and his girlfriend is missing. It’s a Kafkaesque situation, in which the
protagonist is powerless to do anything except play his music. Our reader
enjoyed the book.
Sapiens by Yuval N. Harari details a number of
different theories about mankind’s evolution, but he shows little or favoritism
for any particular theory. The author, a
professor of history at Hebrew University, discusses the various human species
whose remains have been found while describing the way our species has
developed. There’s an overwhelming
amount of information packed into each page, which makes for slow reading; but
the Nevermore member is finding it well written and quite good.
More recent history
is covered in The Hello Girls by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman. World War I
saw the first telephone lines used as a means of communication, and the first
American women soldiers sent to France to operate them. Their path was not an easy one. They had very little respect, either from the
male soldiers or the female nurses; they were in war zones; and both food and
shelter were deplorable. Our reviewer
was impressed with General John “Black Jack” Pershing, who championed the women.
She thought the book was quite an eye-opener, and thought more people should
know about that particular part of WWI.
Our next reader was
engrossed in Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. It’s the story of three different women whose
lives become intertwined. Rachel takes the train to and from work every
day. She begins watching a couple who
seem to be living perfect lives, including the perfect marriage— something that
attracts Rachel, unhappily divorced and upset over her ex’s new wife. Then
an apparent crime draws together the lives of these three women, surprising the
reader with twists and turns. Our
reviewer hasn’t finished the book, but is finding it to be intriguing, entertaining,
and well written, with especially strong characterization.
St. Louie
Slow Drag, the second in the
Julia Nye series by Jo Allison, is a historical mystery set in St. Louis in
1910. Julia works as a typist in the local police department, which is not her
only unconventional activity. She’s also
a suffragette and is willing to go on a date to a seedy part of town to hear
ragtime great Scott Joplin play. An
explosion and fire sends the club-goers fleeing—and the kerosene can says this
was no accident. Our reader was
impressed with the amount of historical detail in the book. Allison creates a vivid portrait of life at
the time, including race relations, the calls for women’s suffrage, and the
march for Prohibition. She recommends the entire series.
Finally, a reader
picked up My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier. A young man is intrigued by his late cousin’s
beautiful widow in a complex romantic-suspense novel set in Cornwall. Our reader gave up on it early, saying that
she had just read Jamaica Inn and that was a hard act to follow. She may try it again later.
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