How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

 

Reviewed by Kristin

*Please note that this is not an instruction manual.

Grace Bernard’s father is a real jerk. He’s married, but not to Grace’s mother, Marie. He’s rich, but couldn’t be bothered to contribute financially or to take Grace in when Marie asked as she lay dying. Grace is a perfectly lovely person, but let’s just say that she doesn’t forgive. Or forget. She is ready to make her father rue the day that he rejected his mistress and daughter.

After Marie’s death, teenage Grace is taken in by the parents of a friend. They are do-gooders and fairly well-off, so caring for the poor little orphan just makes them feel better about themselves. They have no idea that she is plotting the misery and murder of her remaining biological relatives.

Grace begins her story while in a London jail for murder. However, not for one of the six murders she actually committed. She is rather indignant to have been blamed for the other death. But a claim of innocence stating “I wouldn’t have been nearly so careless if I wanted to murder her” is not likely to be taken well, so Grace didn’t bother saying it at all.

Grace is smart, organized, and probably a psychopath. She is a clever antihero who I find rather likeable, (as long as I remember that this is fiction and I’m not cheering on an actual person to make her father pay dearly for his heartlessness.) The end has a bit of a twist with another voice adding to Grace’s story. Not everything went according to plan. But, close enough.

Others have called this debut novel “compulsively readable” and I definitely agree. It’s darkly funny and an enjoyable ride. I look forward to more from Bella Mackie.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

 

Reviewed by Christy

            Louise has made a fairly happy life in California with her daughter Poppy. She loves her parents and her extended family, but she’s perfectly content living across the country from her childhood home in South Carolina. However, when her parents unexpectedly pass away, she’s forced to travel home and deal with all the unpleasantness of a sudden death: crushing grief, whether or not there's a will, clearing out the house, and an immature, ne'er-do-well brother who has no interest in making anything easy for Louise.

            I am a huge fan of Grady Hendrix, and one of things he does so well is give rich backstories to his characters that help them feel three-dimensional. Walking through Louise's childhood home with her as she assesses her and her family's past, I felt like I got to know her parents quite well just by that alone. The details really make it: the shag carpet, the attic string they keep tucked behind a picture frame, the pile of wood in the backyard from an unfinished deck project, and the masses upon masses of hand puppets. Yeah. There are puppets. And this brings me to why this is my least-favorite Hendrix book. Puppets do nothing for me. I just don't find them scary. They can definitely be a little creepy in a fun way (like clowns!), but that's about it. The horror in this novel heavily relies on puppets and dolls freaking you out. I know Hendrix is a fan of campy horror movies and pulp books, so I can see where his inspiration came from. But this had me questioning if I even understood what camp is. I really struggled with figuring out what tone he was going for. In his past work, he's always done well with striking the right balance with humor and horror. I don't think he is as successful here.

My reading experience wasn't all negative. I did like the discussion of generational trauma among families, and found it effective and touching. Mark, Louise's brother, starts as an extremely annoying character who develops into someone quite loveable; I loved his story arc. There are unsettling scenes and scenes that filled me with absolute dread. The history of Pupkin, the main puppet, is so heartbreaking I thought I might cry. There are definitely some good moments in here. However, I don't think this is a good representation of Hendrix's work – especially for a new reader. Unless puppets really freak you out!

Nevermore: She and Her Cat, Sisterland, Lessons from the Edge

 

Reported by Garry

 She and Her Cat: Stories by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa. Renowned anime director Makoto Shinkai turns his hand to prose with this touching, unusual look at cats and their relationships to their humans as well as the relationships of the humans to each other. Made up of four intertwined stories narrated by both the cats and their humans, this sweet book touched the heart of our reader.  CD

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfield. Kate and Violet are identical twins born with psychic abilities. As they grow up and apart, Kate tries to deny and suppress her abilities, while Violet has embraced hers and is now a psychic medium. Violet starts to have premonitions of an impending earthquake devastating St. Louis, and Kate must come to grips with not only her own abilities, but her fraught relationship with her sister. Our reader states that this book begs for a sequel, and will read it in a heartbeat when it arrives. (If it arrives. We’re not psychic.)  DC

Lessons from the Edge: A Memoir by Marie Yovanovitch. “Insightful, extremely educational, and a complete page-turner” is how our reader described this memoir by the former US Ambassador to the Ukraine. Born in Canada to Russian émigré parents, Marie Yovanovitch joined the State Department and rose through the ranks in an impressive and occasionally nail-biting career that saw her serve in Somalia, Armenia, and the Ukraine, amongst others. In the middle of her third ambassadorship, she was abruptly recalled and targeted by a smear campaign, which culminated in her testifying at the first impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump.  KM

 

Also mentioned:

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

The Good Sister by Gillian McAllister

Cashelmara by Susan Howatch

A Wrexford & Sloan Historical Mystery series by Andrea Penrose

The Riviera House by Natasha Lester

After Anna by Lisa Scottoline

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest by Carl Hoffman

Last Things by C.P. Snow

Life on the Mississippi by Rinker Buck

City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita

Observations by Gaslight: Stories from the World of Sherlock Holmes by Lyndsay Faye

Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

Hail to the Chiefs by Barbara Holland

 

Note:  In honor of Presidents Day, we are re-running this review done in 2013 by Nancy, whose reviews always delighted us with their humor.

Reviewed by Nancy

History can be fun. No, no, I'm not kidding. If you did not enjoy history in school, here's your second chance. You can have fun reading some history and there will not be a teacher lurking about, waiting to give you a grade.

The book you need to read is Hail To The Chiefs by Barbara Holland. Ms. Holland, who died in 2010, was an author and essayist who lived in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.

If Ms. Holland had not been busy writing, she could have come down from the mountain and been our stand-up history comic. I am not kidding. Her book offers a summary of presidential mischief, quirks and accomplishments from George Washington to Ronald Regan. The book also includes entertaining tidbits regarding presidential wives.

Barbara Holland definitely had a way with words. A great deal of this book, which devotes a few pages to each president, is laugh out loud material. As she states in her discussion of Millard Fillmore, "in the nineteenth century, whenever anything happened the bystanders got together and formed a political party about it." Fillmore was a member of the Anti-Masonic Party, and the author sums him up in this way:  “He wasn't a bad man - in fact, he quite nice. He was just wrong a good deal of the time.” She further states, "In July of 1850 Millard Fillmore found himself President and hit his stride at being wrong."

Or try this tasty tidbit. "James Monroe is remembered for the Monroe Doctrine, which some consider John Quincy Adam's finest achievement."

On Abraham Lincoln she states, "Lincoln never had much fun being President because of the Civil War all the time. It was all ready to roll when he took office, and five days after it was over he was dead as a duck. He had the war, the whole war, and nothing but the war."

On James Buchanan, Lincoln’s predecessor, and the run up to the Civil War she gives us the following:  “He thought if he just sat still and kept his mouth shut, things wouldn’t fall apart until he could hand them over to the next man and run like hell.”

See?  History can be fun. Seriously, it would have been ok with me if this woman had taught half the history courses I ever had.

The fun just never stops. Here’s what Ms. Holland had to say regarding one world conflict: “I don’t recommend your trying to understand World War I unless you plan to make a career of it, and I don’t recommend that either.”

President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other hand AT THE SAME TIME. I once worked with someone who could render backward cursive writing with her non-dominant hand, but I believe this may top that.

In the section on Ronald Regan, Ms. Holland takes five pages to render a summation of the plot of “Bedtime for Bonzo,” former President Regan’s most famous movie. I believe I have watched parts of that movie, but never the movie in its entirety at one sitting. Upon reading the plot summary I realized why. Even when I was eleven I doubt I could have gotten through it; however, I enjoyed Ms. Holland’s summary immensely.

I suppose it could be a sly “editorial comment of omission” from Ms. Holland that the movie summary constitutes the entire section on Regan. There is nothing about the Iran-Contra difficulties, John Hinckley, Jr.’s assassination attempt on Regan’s life, supply-side economics,  the invasion of Grenada, or any of the rest of his time in office.

If you think you don’t have the desire or the time to read this book, at least get hold of a copy and have a look at the portrait of Millard Fillmore. Mr. Fillmore resembles what current celebrity personality? Correct! Alec Baldwin. It's something about the eyes. Maybe also the mouth.

I felt I was astute to notice this and wondered if anyone else had, so I fooled around on the internet a little. Gee whiz. I'm not the first. If you've got a moment for some silly entertainment, plug "Alec Baldwin Millard Fillmore" into a search engine. The resemblance is uncanny.

As if the body of the text weren’t side splitting enough, most of the footnotes are a riot. I know I’ve gone on enough about all this, so I’m not going to start quoting footnotes, BUT there’s one you just have to read. It’s in the chapter on William McKinley. In the library copy of the book this is on page 174. Start midway through the fourth paragraph and read the text preceding footnote 14. Don’t worry about the context. Just read the last half of that sentence and then the footnote. HA!

I know if I can get this book into your hands you will not be able to keep from reading it, so you’d just better get in to the library and check out that footnote!

Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Enola Holmes, the much younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft, returns for another adventure in Victorian England. Fifteen year old Enola has set up her own business in London, having won grudging respect from her brothers in her previous adventures. Independent, extremely intelligent, and determined, Enola is set to blaze trails for females in a time when restrictions abounded.

As this adventure opens, Enola receives word from Dr. Watson that her brother Sherlock is not doing well. Having no cases at hand, and therefore nothing to occupy his mind he has fallen into depression. When Enola pays him a call, she finds a young woman, Letitia, who is desperate to find news of her twin sister. The sister, Felicity, married the Earl of Dunhench but he has sent word that Felicity is dead. Letitia strongly believes that her sister is alive but in some sort of dire straits.

Soon, both Sherlock and Enola are on the case, each pursuing leads in their own fashion.  Indeed, the game is afoot!

I thoroughly enjoyed the first books in the Enola Holmes series:

The Case of the Missing Marquess

The Case of the Left-Handed Lady

The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets

The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan

The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline

The Cast of the Gypsy Goodbye

While these are individual cases, there is an overriding story arc concerning Mrs. Holmes, mother of Enola, Sherlock, and Mycroft, that continues through all six volumes. And yes, these are considered either Children's or Young Adult books, but a good book is a good book as far as I'm concerned.

Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche is a self-contained mystery with an introduction by Sherlock who explains the set up: Enola’s past, how she came to be in London, and so forth. It can be read as a standalone if the reader isn’t already familiar with Enola.

The depiction of Victorian society can be eye-opening.  How Enola manages to circumvent (or not!) some of the conventions of the day provides a good bit of the entertainment as far as I am concerned. She’s clever, and her feminine perspectives sometimes provide valuable clues that elude her brother.

All in all, another fine adventure!

(Note: there's another book in the series already out, Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade,  and there's another due out in 2023.)

Nevermore: Do No Harm, Cashelmara, Wrexford & Sloan

 

Reported by Garry

 

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by is a memoir by Henry Marsh, based on his 30+ years as a leading neurosurgeon. Candid, darkly hilarious, and deeply insightful, Do No Harm lent our reader a much deeper understanding of not only the National Health Service (the UK’s centralized health care system), but of the brain and its incredible intricacies than she previously had. Far from ego-driven and self-congratulatory, Marsh explores not only the successes that he has had, but failures and mistakes made along the way. “Very truthful and very human” is how our reader described this book.  CD 

Cashelmara by Susan Howatch is a historical drama that starts in the late 19^th century and spans three generations of the de Salis family, aristocrats whose fortunes rise and fall with the politics of the time. Our reader says that the writer did a beautiful job of capturing the personalities of the various characters, including the historical slang and personal idiosyncrasies that set them apart from one another, and in particular noted that each character has a distinct “voice” that comes through from the page.  DC

The Wrexford & Sloan Mystery series by Andrea Penrose is a seven book series of regency-era books that are “brain candy” to our reader, but “GREAT brain candy”! Our reader particularly liked the great characters that Penrose has created in these books, and in particular noted that the characters are actually likeable people. The series focuses on Charlotte Sloan and the Earl of Wrexford, who carry on a “will they, won’t they” relationship while together solving murder mysteries that our reader describes as fun and wholly believable.  SC

 

Also mentioned:

Weird Virginia: Your Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Jeff Bahr, Troy Taylor and Loren Coleman

The River Hills & Beyond: Poems by Lou V. Crabtree

Sweet Hollow: Stories by Lou V. Crabtree

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

The Paris Orphan by Natasha Lester

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

The Maid by Nita Prose

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Sweet Land of Liberty: A History of America in 11 Pies by Rossi Anastopoulo

Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America's Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power by Kyle Spencer

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

She and Her Cat: Stories by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Lessons from the Edge:  A Memoir by Marie Yovanovitch

The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods

Whale Day and Other Poems by Billy Collins

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld

Contemporary Romantic Comedies

Selected by Ambrea 

 

Cindy loves fashion.  She’s even earned her degree in design, because, one day, she hopes to be the name others are wearing.  To jumpstart her career, Cindy decides to volunteer for the reality show Before Midnight and quickly becomes a body positivity icon.  As the only plus-size woman on the dating competition, she’s definitely made a splash.  Cindy, however, doesn’t expect to find love in the most unexpected places—on television.  Will Cindy be able to find her happily-ever-after, or will she have to choose between her fashion aspirations and Prince Charming?  Find out in If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy.

In By the Book by Jasmine Guillory, Isabelle—Izzy to her friends—is an overworked and underpaid editorial assistant.  She has spent years working for the same publishing house and meeting the same dead ends.  When she’s given the opportunity to work with grumpy Beau Towers to produce his tell-all memoir, she jumps at the chance.  But helping Beau write his book is much more difficult than she expected, especially when she’s inspired to write her own book—and, more surprisingly, finds herself falling for the prickly celebrity.

 

After the death of her treasure-hunting—and notoriously absent—father, Lily is left with nothing but a skill for solving puzzles and a bunch of hand-drawn maps.  To keep her head above water, she starts offering fake treasure-hunting tours, letting tourists and thrill-seekers walk in the steps of Duke Wilder.  It’s during one of these tours she stumbles across Leo Grady, her first and greatest love.  But Lily has no money, no patience, and no love lost for all the men who have left her behind.  Can Lily and Leo learn to put their shared past behind them, or will the Canyonlands tear them apart for good?  Check out Something Wilder by Christina Lauren.

 

Ari Abrams loves weather.  As a TV meteorologist, she’s living the dream—except her boss, legendary weatherwoman Torrance Hale, and the station director, Torrance’s ex-husband, are always at each other’s throats.  Ari is at her wits’ end, until she hatches a plan with sports reporter Russell Barringer.  Through hijinks and well-meaning meddling, Ari and Russell work to bring the couple back together.  When they find themselves unexpectedly growing closer, Ari can’t help but wonder if blue skies might be on the way in Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon.

Pucky, Prince of Bacon by Georgia Dunn

Reviewed by Jeanne

I’ve loved both comic books and strips from even before I started reading.  I can remember my grandmother reading the strips to me from the newspaper, including her favorite strip which was, appropriately, called Grandma. Now I like to start my day with a cup of coffee while reading a selection of my favorite daily comic strips.  Recently, I have picked up two collections in a row, starting with Tom Gauld’s Revenge of the Librarians. The next thing I knew, I was reading the new Georgia Dunn collection, Pucky, Prince of Bacon. While these two are very different, I thoroughly enjoyed both. 

Dunn’s daily strip Breaking Cat News runs in some newspapers (not the Bristol Herald Courier, alas) and features the adventures of an assortment of felines and their friends who act as reporters for “news that’s important to cats.” The three main reporters are Elvis, a needy and neurotic Siamese; Puck, a three legged black cat who is very zen except when it comes to bacon or ham; and rambunctious Lupin, a deaf white cat who rushes in where angels fear to tread. They live in the Big Pink House with The Man, The Woman, and The Toddler.  Pucky, Prince of Bacon collects several months of these strips, including the Sunday ones.  This time around, our intrepid reporters take on the terror of pets everywhere, the vacuum cleaner, investigate Fourth of July cuisine to answer the question, “Can cats even eat potato salad?” and wonder why The Woman is getting very round. 

Sweet, funny, and gentle, these books are marketed to middle school students but I know many adults who are also addicted. I think of them as being like Mutts or Peanuts: kid friendly but not juvenile.  I love Dunn’s attention to detail in the panels, from decorations on the walls, and the lovely color palette.

This is the sixth book in the series and while it can stand on its own, for full enjoyment I’d recommend starting with some of the earlier titles where you can read the backstories of some of the other characters.  I’m particularly fond of Tommy, who lives at another house with Sophie, an artistic feline soul who does not care for Tommy’s adoration.  The story arc where Elvis is lost and meets Tommy always brings tears to my eyes.  Yeah, I’m a softy.

Breaking Cat News

Lupin Leaps In

Take It Away, Tommy

Elvis Puffs Out

Behind the Scenes with Burt

Pucky, Prince of Bacon

Nevermore: Our Missing Hearts, Paris Orphan, Magnolia Palace, Immune

Reported by Garry

 

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. In this near future dystopian novel, 20-year-old Bird Gardner has not seen his mother, an acclaimed Chinese American poet and activist, since she vanished eleven years previously. Bird and his father live a quiet existence in a small room just off Harvard Square. One day, Bird receives a letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and he realizes the drawing contains clues as to the whereabouts of his mother. This novel was named a Best Book of 2022 by multiple news organizations and comes highly recommended by our reader.  AH 

The Paris Orphan by Natasha Lester. Jessica May is an American photojournalist who comes to Paris during World War II, and faces an uphill battle as a woman on the front lines. Friendships with other war correspondents and military men help, but the love of an orphaned girl thrust into the arms of the soldiers is what keeps Jessica going. Skip to 2005 and D’Arcy Hallworth has come to a chateau outside of Paris to curate a collection of World War II photographs – an assignment that will upend everything she thinks she knows about her family. This historical fiction is loosely based on true events, was heavily researched and is an absolute page-turner. Our reader said that she couldn’t put it down.  WJ

 

The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis. Romance, murder, high art and a true-life famous family all come together in this historical novel. In 1920, Lillian Carter, down-on-her-luck former model, starts working with the Frick family heiress and slowly but surely becomes entangled in the messy life of the family – affairs, stolen jewels, and high drama, culminating in a possible murder. Fifty years later, English model Veronica Weber chances upon a series of hidden messages in the Frick mansion (now a museum), a discovery that sets off a whirlwind adventure that could finally unlock the truth behind what really happened in the gilded halls of the opulent manor. Our reader was thrilled with this combination of romance, history, and art.  MH 

Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer is an incredibly engaging, accessible deep dive into the human immune system. Each chapter delves into a different facet of the immune system that is engaged in a never-ending war against bacteria, viruses, fungi, and cancers. Our reader particularly loved the informative, colorful diagrams throughout the book, finding that they really helped clarify and emphasize the descriptions in the text, and found the book to be completely fascinating.  KM

 

Also mentioned:

Hard Times Cotton Mill Girls: Personal Histories of Womanhood and Poverty in the South by Victoria Byerly

Pioneer Girl by Bich Minh Nguyen

The 12-Hour Art Expert: Everything You Need to Know About Art in a Dozen Masterpieces by Noah Charney

The Accidental Veterinarian: Tales from a Pet Practice by Philipp Schott

The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Walking to Wijiji by Bunny Medeiros

The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes

All The Broken Places by John Boyne

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie by Rachel Linden

Tutankhamun's Trumpet: Ancient Egypt in 100 Objects from the Boy-King's Tomb by Toby Wilkinson

She and Her Cat: Stories by Makoto Shinkai

Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America's Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power by Kyle Spencer

The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World by Malcolm Gaskill

Weird Virginia: Your Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Jeff Bahr, Troy Taylor, and Loren Coleman

Mrs. Malory and a Death in the Family by Hazel Holt

Reviewed by Jeanne

Comfortable widow Sheila Malory receives a warning that her cousin Bernard may be coming to call in search of genealogical information. The warning is due to Bernard being a crashing bore, impervious to hints, and has more than his share of entitlement.  His wife is nice enough, or could be if she weren’t so firmly under Bernard’s thumb, but in this case the better part of valor is to plan to stay away from home as much as possible and not answer the phone.

Alas, another helpful cousin has told Bernard that Mrs. Malory holds an important family Bible so he is determined to pay a call—or several. It’s quite exhausting.  Still, when Bernard turns up dead, Mrs. Malory tries to be sorry, but she can’t help wondering if all the digging into the past has led to his demise.

This was my first Mrs. Malory book, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It’s firmly in the line of British village mysteries where innumerable pots of tea are consumed, and the detective uses information gleaned from friends and relatives to find the answers. The setting feels familiar because of that tradition, and because the author obviously felt comfortable in that setting. I found this book an especial treat because it is actually written by a British author:  recently I have read any number of “British mysteries” written by Americans.  Usually, several times in these books I will pause and wonder about some detail, an expression or such which seems more American than British, or else the author will take time to explain some quaint British custom that no British author would bother to do.  (In one book the American author felt obligated to explain “tea” repeatedly so her fellow Americans wouldn’t think that they were just drinking tea. The first time was okay; it was the next three times that annoyed me.)

Anyway, there was no such problem in this book, which was a nifty little mystery. There are any number of suspects because Bernard enjoyed bullying others as much as he bullied his wife, and he also liked to indulge in some blackmail to get his way. This particular story also has a bit of twist which readers discover early on but which I won’t divulge here to deprive anyone else of the pleasure.

I am definitely going to read more in this series.  Alas, Hazel Holt passed away in 2015 and there don’t appear to be any more books in the pipeline so I will have to make do with the nineteen or so already written.

Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson

 

Reviewed by Kristin

In the summer of 1996, two teenagers in Coalfield, Tennessee created something that turned their small town upside down, and made waves of paranoia ripple throughout the nation. It all started with an unknown but vaguely familiar phrase:

The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.

Frankie is filling her summer trying to write a novel featuring a villainous teen girl who is much cleverer than her police chief father or her girl detective sister. Take that, Nancy Drew. Frankie meets Zeke at the public pool and finds herself strangely drawn to this boy from Memphis visiting his grandmother for the summer. Zeke is an artist, a fellow creative type alongside Frankie.

Zeke challenges Frankie to write something—anything—and he will create illustrations. Frankie takes a deep breath, and writes, “The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.” The phrase comes from somewhere deep inside, and Frankie instantly believes it is the best thing she has ever written.

Thanks to Frankie’s older triplet brothers stealing a Xerox machine last year (and promptly jamming it making photocopies of their butts, then abandoning it in the garage), she and Zeke make 120 copies of the poster and hang them all over the town. It’s just a lark, and they hope to create a little buzz and make people talk about it. Nothing ever happens in Coalfield.

People do talk about the poster and quickly become obsessed by it. Some are certain it is the work of Satan worshippers, or kidnappers, or homicidal maniacs. People are sure that it must a lyric from an obscure band, or something that they just can’t put their finger on. Copycats abound, and people do many foolish things in the name of being fugitives.

That one little phrase, that one little poster, changed the lives of many.

Kevin Wilson has a talent for writing real page-turners. I could not stop reading, and I did not want to stop, (except for the dread of running out of pages). Wilson can build characters quickly and keep readers engaged in his plots. I also read Nothing to See Here, (reviewed by Jeanne) and absolutely loved it. Wilson’s characters are quirky, but somehow totally believable even when they do strange things, like burst into flames. So yes, his writing is a little fantastical at time, but oh so enjoyable.

Nevermore: Ex Hex, The Sentence, Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years, Number One Is Walking

 Reported by Garry

 

The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling is a fun, supernatural rom-com, though our reader notes it does have an “R” rating. Vivienne Jones is a young witch whose heart was broken by the dashing Rhys Penhallow. Doing what any crossed witch would do, Vivienne cast a curse on Rhys, but assumed that it would simply be an annoyance more than anything else. When Rhys comes back to town for Graves Glen’s annual fall festival, Vivienne discovers how very wrong she was, and how out of control her hex has become. The two exes must work together to break the break-up curse before it destroys their hometown.  PP 

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich is another supernatural story with an especially interesting twist – the author is a character in her own book, and the story takes place in the bookstore owned by the author. Tookie is a young Ojibwe woman, newly out of prison. She starts working at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis (the real-life bookstore owned by Erdrich), and shortly thereafter the store becomes haunted by the ghost of the store’s best, but most difficult, client. The ghost story takes a sudden turn when George Floyd is murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, and COVID-19 shuts the country down. These two storylines intertwine in an unexpected and gripping novel by one of America’s premier writers.  MH

Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years; The Adventures of the Great Detective in India and Tibet by Jamyang Norbu. Sir Conan Doyle never explained the two years that Sherlock Holmes spent after that fateful plunge off the Reichenbach Falls, so Tibetan author Jamyang Norbu has. In Norbu’s vision, Holmes makes his way to Tibet with the help of Huree Chunder Mookherjee (a character from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim), Holmes makes his way to Lhasa and helps the newly anointed 13^th Dalai Lama secure his place against the Imperial Chinese forces. According to our reader, this is a great mystery that will keep readers enthralled for hours, and will especially delight those who appreciate writers like Conan Doyle and Jules Verne.  AH 

Number One Is Walking: My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions by Steve Martin is the self-effacing new memoir by one of America’s leading funny men. Steve Martin has been acting on TV and in the movies since the late 1960s. Sharing anecdotes from his time on such movies as Roxanne, The Jerk, Father of the Bride and many more, Martin shares insights into his time in front of and behind the camera over the past forty years. This book is illustrated by New York Times cartoonist Harry Bliss, and our reader especially loved what the cartoons added to the stories of Martin’s years in the entertainment business.  CD.

 

Also mentioned:

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

That Night by Alice McDermott

A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley

They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent by Sara Kendzior

Left of Eden by Dennis Broe

Polar Exposure: An All-Women’s Expedition to the North Pole by Felicity Aston

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

All the Broken Places by John Boyne

Sweet Land of Liberty: A History of America in 11 Pies by Rossi Anastopoulo

Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson

Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley

Trouble on Tybee by Tammy Marshall

City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita

Hidden in Snow by Vivica Sten

Bridge to the Sun: The Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II by Bruce Henderson

Great Short Books: A Year of Reading -- Briefly by Kenneth C. Davis

Maus Now: Selected Writing edited by Hillary Chute