Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Nevermore: Killers of a Certain Age, Spinster's Fortune, The Guncle

 

Reported by Garry



Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn is the thrilling tale of four 60-year-old ladies who have one thing in common: they are all assassins. Sent on an all-expenses paid “retirement” cruise by the organization that has employed their unique talents for the past 40 years, the ladies quickly realize that they have been marked for death. In order to turn the tables and survive their Farewell Tour, they must rely on each other and their experiences to out a killer and turn the tables in their favor. Packed with charming characters, page turning action sequences and a great sense of humor, this book comes highly recommended by our reader.  MC

The Spinster’s Fortune by Mary Kendall is a novel loosely based on the real Blanche Magruder. In this novel, Blanche is an aging spinster who is placed in a home for the elderly and infirm under the assumption that she is mentally incompetent. Her niece, Margaret has been named executor of Blanche’s estate and must untangle the mystery of where in her now crumbling and looted Georgetown manor Blanche has hidden the family fortune. Our reader loved this gothic mystery with its extremely well planned out twists and turns that kept her guessing right up to the end.  KN



The Guncle by Steven Rowley is a hilarious novel about family, love, patience, and grief that has won the NPR Book of the Year award, and is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller. Patrick O’Hara is a former sitcom star who loves his niece and nephew – as long as he can return them to their parents when he is finished. A series of family tragedies strike and suddenly Patrick (or GUP, which is short for “Gay Uncle Patrick”) finds himself as the sole caretaker of the two young children. Patrick’s life is turned upside down by the arrival of the two under-ten children and he has to make some drastic and quick changes to his lifestyle in order to support and care for two children who have been uprooted from their home in Connecticut to Palm Springs. Our reader was deeply touched by the nuanced ways that Rowley handles situations that could, in the hands of a lesser writer, come across as maudlin or superficial.  KM

Also mentioned:

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

The Red Cotton Fields series by Michael Strickland

Phantom by Greer Rivers

Falling is Not an Option: A Way to Lifelong Balance by George Locker

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

Black Mountain Breakdown by Lee Smith

Astray by Emma Donoghue

Our Voice of Fire: A Memoir of a Warrior Rising by Brandy Morin

Lark Ascending by Silas House

Good Medicine, Hard Times: Memoir of a Combat Physician in Iraq by Edward P. Horvath, MD

How All This Started by Pete Fromm

On the Rooftop by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Season of Yellow Leaf by Douglas C. Jones

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome and A. Frederics

The Call of the Last Frontier:  The True Story of a Woman’s Twenty-Year Alaska Adventure by Melissa Cook

Tokyo Rose – Zero Hour (A Graphic Novel):  A Japanese American Woman’s Persecution and Ultimate Redemption After World War II by Andre R. Frattino and Kate Kasenow

Dying of Politeness by Geena Davis

This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns

No comments:

Post a Comment