Reported by Jeanne
Bring Me Back,
a thriller by B. A. Paris, started off the Nevermore discussion this week. A
dozen years have passed since Finn’s girlfriend Layla vanished at a rest stop
and he was accused of her murder. He was
cleared and now he’s found happiness from an unlikely source: Layla’s sister, Ellen. Not long after they
become engaged, a mutual friend claims to have seen Layla, alive and well. Items that had meaning to Layla begin to
appear, and Finn has to wonder if Layla is still alive—or is someone playing a
dangerous game? Our reader was not happy
with the resolution and wasn’t sure that she liked the characters.
John McCain’s new book, The Restless Wave,
was the next title discussed. Our
reviewer was quite impressed with it, saying that McCain expresses himself very
well. She felt the book and the man were
both very inspirational. (Note: this
meeting was held before Senator McCain passed away.)
Salt Lane
by William Shaw intrigued one of this week’s Nevermore attendees in part
because of the strong setting: the Kent
coastline. It’s quite a change for DS
Alexandra Cupidi, who was transferred from the London Metropolitan police force
to the sometimes stark countryside. While her teenage daughter Zoe finds solace
in birdwatching, Alex is soon embroiled in a series of mysteries, starting with
the discovery of a woman’s body in a drainage ditch. Our reader enjoyed the book, and recommended
it as a good, well-written mystery, with a strong sense of place.
Dear Mrs. Bird
by A.J. Pearce introduces us to Emmeline Lake, a bright and eager young woman
anxious to do her part in the war effort.
In London, 1940, that ends up being a volunteer telephone operator for
the Auxiliary Fire Services. She longs
to be a war correspondent and jumps at the opportunity to take a position at a
newspaper. To her great disappointment,
she is assigned the task of being a typist for the paper’s advice columnist,
the renowned Mrs. Bird. Mrs. Bird has
very strict standards, which includes tossing any letters that contain
Unpleasantness—i.e., real problems, such as not wanting to have children
evacuated or confessions of infidelity.
Emmy secretly begins to respond to those letters, trying to give advice
and comfort. If you’re looking for a light, entertaining book, consider this debut
novel.
Finally, a reviewer reported disappointment with
Fredrik Backman’s Us Against You. This is the second book set in
Beartown, an isolated Swedish village whose pride and joy is its hockey
team. An incident involving one of the
junior players leaves the team’s continued existence in doubt, even as the
rival team from Hed—made up of former Beartown players—readies for what might
be the last game. Us Against You
picks up where the previous book, Beartown, left off, but can be read as
a standalone because Backman supplies enough information for new readers. However,
our reader said she found it to be repetitious and she wasn’t engaged by the
characters. She also noted she doesn’t
particularly like hockey.
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