Love, Lies & Hocus Pocus: Beginnings by Lydia Sherrer

Reviewed by Kristin

Lily Singer is perfectly happy in her job as Archives Manager at the McCain Library of Agnes Scott College.  She has recently decided to try online dating, with less-than-promising results.  The men she meets are inevitably much older and much less attractive (in so many, many ways) than their profiles indicate.  Then there’s her friend Sebastian.  He has a tendency to try to get by on his good looks, which works amazingly well in most cases.  He’s a bit lazy, but does have goals.  And oh, by the way, Sebastian is a witch.  No big surprise for Lily; after all, she’s a wizard.

Sherrer has changed up the traditional definitions of witches and wizards.  Forget about gender defining a man as a wizard and a woman as a witch.  In this world, wizards are those with inborn abilities to manipulate magic.  Wizardry can be passed on through heredity, but it is not guaranteed.  The genetic lottery may give one child of a wizard those same powers, while another might end up an ordinary, non-magical variety of human.  Witches, on the other hand, are born as ordinary humans and have to negotiate with spirits, pixies, and other fae creatures in order to receive gifts of powers for short-term use.

The previous archives manager, Madam Barrington, is a wizard.  She cultivated Lily for the position, and taught her much about the wizarding world.  Madam Barrington also happens to be Sebastian’s great-aunt, although she most strongly disapproves of the shenanigans that he gets himself into time after time.  Some people simply cannot be trusted, as far as she is concerned.

Sebastian has taken on a job involving a malignant spell and he has gotten himself into trouble.  He needs Lily to help him out, but before they know it, events have spiraled out of control and they are caught in a repeating time loop.  Will they ever escape?  Will they do so in time to save lives, including their own?

This first in series book was an enjoyable read: light, not too complicated, with likeable characters and a promising set up for future entries.  The other titles include Revelations, Allies, Legends, and Betrayal.  Not to judge a book by the cover, but Sir Edgar Allan Kipling, Lily’s fluffy black and white tuxedo cat, graces the front of every entry in the series.  Books, a cat, throw in a little magic?  Sounds like a formula for success

The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin

Reviewed by Ambrea

Ben Payne is a surgeon with a busy schedule and Ashley Knox is a magazine writer, who is desperate to make it to her own wedding.  Together, they charter a small plane in the hopes of making it home before a blizzard strands them in Salt Lake City.  But when their pilot crashes, Ben and Ashley find themselves stranded in the High Uintas Mountains without food, without shelter, badly injured and hopelessly lost.  They will have to rely implicitly upon each other if they hope to survive.

The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin is an absolutely wonderful book.  Primarily told from the perspective of Ben Payne, captured through snippets of his personal narrative and recordings he makes, The Mountain Between Us is one of those novels that’s hard to put down.  Although the suspense of the story—I literally spent hours wondering, would Ashley make it?  Was Ben going to survive?—kept me glued to the pages, I think the pacing had a lot to do with why I couldn’t seem to pry myself away for more than a few minutes at a time.

A recording separates nearly each chapter, giving readers a glimpse into the harsh realities of what Ben and Ashley face and, moreover, offering readers the opportunity to learn more about Ben’s life.  These little dividing chapters are not very long, but they have a lot of impact and they feel very intimate, very personal.  They also help to flesh out Ben’s character and give him a depth—a very human aspect—that I appreciated.

Although The Mountain Between Us is listed under Christian fiction, I noticed Martin uses religion with a very subtle touch.  Likewise, the romance isn’t forced—it builds very slowly and, more importantly, it doesn’t overshadow the fact that both Ashley and Ben are fighting for their survival.  The progression of their relationship feels natural, which I really liked, because, let’s be honest, if I were stranded and starving on a bleak mountainside with serious injuries, I really wouldn’t be thinking much about romantic intentions—even if he is Idris Elba.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading The Mountain Between Us for BPL Book Club and I look forward to checking out more from Charles Martin.

Nevermore: Elderly Lady, Medicine Men, Threat, Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Her One Mistake, Where the Crawdads Sing

Reported by Kristin

Nevermore began with laughter, as one reviewer reported on An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten as absolutely delightful.  Tursten is a well-known Swedish mystery author, but took the challenge to create a new character for a Christmas short-story anthology.  Thus, 88-year-old Maud was created.  Maud is indeed up to no good, and our reader commented that this set of tales shows that when you get older, you don’t have to get dumber.

Another reader picked up Medicine Men: Extreme Appalachian Doctoring by Carolyn Jourdan, a collection of doctors’ stories in the southern Appalachians.  Miracle cures and old wives tales abound and the dialect is preserved in print.  Jourdan lives near Sevierville, so her writing has the flavor of this region.  While our reader very much enjoyed the book, she found most of the stories rather unbelievable.

The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump by Andrew McCabe was next discussed around the table.  McCabe served as Deputy Director of the FBI for two years as well as being named Acting Director for a short time in 2017.  The volume deals with how the FBI is organized and McCabe’s career, only delving into more recent political maneuverings in the last 50 pages or so.  Our reader highly recommended this as she perceived McCabe to be a very intelligent man with a well-written book.

Another book club member enjoyed a recent New York Times Bestseller, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer.  Pointing out that Native American culture did not end at Wounded Knee in 1890, but was forced to forge a new identity amidst the overwhelming non-Native, mostly European, influences in the United States.  Treuer argues that these struggles caused Native Americans to build stronger communities as they sought to preserve their language and traditions.  Our reader found the book very touching and descriptive of how Native Americans have fitted into mainstream life as well as maintaining their own tribal identities.

A psychological thriller made its way into the book club discussion with Her One Mistake by Heidi Perks.  Charlotte has taken her children along with Alice, her friend Harriet’s daughter, to the school fair for a day of fun.  But when Alice disappears, the tragedy breaks apart the women’s friendship.  Our reader said that there were plenty of twists and turns, and that she almost had the plot figured out, but not exactly.  This is one book that will keep readers reading late into the night.

Finally, another reader very much enjoyed another recent bestseller, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.  On the North Carolina coast, Barkley Cove is a small town full of natural beauty.  When young Kya Clark is abandoned by her parents and grows up in the salt marshes, she becomes a bit feared for her eccentricities.  When a young man is murdered, Kya, the “Marsh Girl,” is immediately suspected.  Owens’ literary debut and huge success has been hailed as beautiful and moving.  Our reader claimed that she was surprised by the ending, but overall loved the book.

Ranger McIntyre: Unmentionable Murders by James C. Work

Reviewed by Jeanne

Ranger Tim McIntyre, WWI vet and fishing enthusiast, is enjoying his job as ranger in the newly minted Rocky Mountain National Park.  Not that there’s much to do, except stop city folk from feeding marshmallows to chipmunks, man the entrance gate (except that there’s no gate), stop poachers, and the like.  He’s certainly enjoying a visit with Doris, the lady photographer who is visiting to take photos of some of the park’s waterfalls in hopes of selling them for picture postcards, magazine articles, or maybe even a book.  He’s not quite prepared to embark on a suspicious death investigation, but when a body of a man is found clad only in his underpants, he really doesn’t have much choice but to trek on up to the remote location, Doris in tow, to see what he can discover.

This is a promising beginning to a new series, set in the early 1920s.  Ranger McIntyre is a delight, a man who has been to war and is aware of the dark side of human nature, but hasn’t let it turn him bitter.  He takes a lively interest in his fellow human beings, and an even livelier interest in fish, but puzzles are what he likes best.  The mystery of this dead guy in his skivvies is a doozy and our ranger is dead set on figuring it out.

I was enticed to read this book by the reviews that mentioned the likeable character, amiable humor, and –oh, all right, the Publishers Weekly review said Ranger McIntyre was a smarter version of Dudley Do-Right and I was hooked.  They were right! Tim isn’t dim at all, but his laid-back personality causes people to underestimate him.  He has an eye for the pretty ladies, and an even sharper eye for good grub, but there’s a lot more going on in that brain of his.  I liked the sweet nature of the book; Ranger McIntyre isn’t naïve but he doesn’t go looking for the bad in everyone either.

I also enjoyed the setting:  not just the park, but the Prohibition period, when people are first taking to the road to search for the great outdoors.  Since the park is so new—and the whole park system is fairly new—everybody is trying to figure things out.  Questions such as, “Who has jurisdiction over a crime in the park?” need answers, but in the meantime, the rangers do the best they can.  Photography, while not new, is still a bit of a novelty as everyone rushes to get photos of places few people have seen.

A “don’t miss” part of the book for me was the glossary which gives definitions that you didn’t know you needed.   Under “Chipmunk,” for example, Work notes that scientists have spent a great deal of time and effort to find out that they are not gophers, marmots, or prairie dogs, but that tourists have been known to blur such distinctions and send children out “to give  peanuts to  the ‘chipmunks’ which turn out to be brown bears.”

Yep, next time Ranger McIntyre is on the case, I’ll be happy to ride along.

Redshirts by John Scalzi

Reviewed by Kristin

Most Star Trek fans are familiar with the concept:  On the original series, if you were a minor character wearing a red shirt, you were at risk of serious peril during each weekly show.  If called upon to accompany Captain James T. Kirk, Science Officer Spock, and/or Dr. Leonard McCoy on an away mission, the red-shirted crewmember was most likely doomed to be pushed down a cliff, vaporized, or have all the sodium chloride sucked out of their body.

John Scalzi has taken this idea and run with it in Redshirts.  The crew of the Intrepid, the flagship of the Universal Union (a cooperative galactic organization very similar in feel to the aforementioned Trek universe’s United Federation of Planets) has been roaming the skies with aplomb in the twenty-fifth century.  Ensign Andrew Dahl is proud to have such a prestigious assignment, but he very quickly notices that his co-workers go out of their way to avoid being chosen for away missions, or indeed to be any nearer to the senior offices than absolutely necessary.  How many times could the other menial crewmembers be running to the mess hall for coffee or checking a supply room just as their fearless leader Captain Lucius Abernathy or chief science officer Commander Q’eeng steps foot on the deck?

But wait—this work of science fiction is set in a future version of our real world, a world in which Star Trek really was on television screens in the late 1960s, inspiring many more science fiction shows with wildly incredible plots.  Ensign Dahl begins to notice that the crew of the Intrepid seems to be controlled by some larger ‘Narrative’ which throws lesser crewmembers into the gaping jaws of Borgovian Land Worms or kills them with the Merovian Plague.  Is the rank-and-file crew simply living their lives not through free will, but in some predestined manner solely intended to add some tension to the storyline of the ranking officers of the Intrepid?

I found Redshirts to be a really fun book with strong characters and a quickly moving plot.  The ridiculousness of the perils the crewmembers faced added to the humor.  Just like in Star Trek, giant worms, black goop, and rocks are equally likely to eat any humans which dare to venture into their path.

After finishing this novel, a new John Scalzi book arrived at the library.  His author photo particularly caught my eye, not for his physical features, but for the fact that his cat is photobombing him.  I will definitely be starting his other space saga entitled The Interdependency series, first with The Collapsing Empire and followed by The Consuming Fire.