Nevermore: Sunset Beach, Touch, The Familiar

 

Nevermore 7-9-24

 

Sunset Beach by Mary Kay Andrews

Reluctantly accepting a job with her father's law firm, Drue finds herself investigating the possibility of corruption within the office after a suspicious death at a nearby resort.

A very light and easy read but too formulaic and predictable.    – VC     2 stars

 

Touch: a Novel by Olaf Olafsson

When he receives a message from a lover from the 60s who disappeared, restaurant owner Kristofer is pulled toward finding an answer to the mystery of her sudden departure, compelling him to travel to London and Japan just as the virus threatens to shut everything down.

Poetic and emotional – beautifully written with well-developed characters.    –NH    5 stars

 

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

During the Spanish Golden Age, Luzia Cotado, gifted with magic, garners the attention of the disgraced secretary to Spain's king, plunging her into a world where the lines between magic, science, and fraud blur—and where she must enlist the help of an embittered immortal familiar whose deadly secrets could destroy them both.

Filled with intrigue and magic, I really liked it.   –MH   4 stars

 

Other Books Mentioned

The Woman with a Purple Heart: Based on True Events by Diane Hanks

Everyone Is Watching by Heather Gudenkauf

A Walk for Sunshine: A 2,160-mile Expedition for Charity on the Appalachian Trail by Jeff Alt

Sula by Toni Morrison

Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories by Ron Rash

Blackberries, Blackberries by Crystal Wilkinson

The Lego Story: How a Little Toy Sparked the World's Imagination by Jens Andersen

In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face-To-Face With the Idea of an Afterlife  by Sebastian Junger

Secret Appalachian Highlands: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure by Robert Sorrell

Burning Bright: Stories by Ron Rash

Signs & Wonders by Phillip Gulley

In the Shadow of the Sacred Grove by Carol Spindel

A Romantic Education by Patricia Hampl Nothing Gold Can Stay: Stories by Ron Rash

Paws to Remember by Sofie Kelly

James by Percival L. Everett

 

New Books

Making Native American hunting, fighting, and survival  tools   : A Fully Illustrated Guide to Creating Arrowheads, Axes, and Other Early American Implements by Monte Burch

 Sociopath: a memoir by Patric Gagne

Nevermore: Radar Girls, Someone We Know, Stargazer's Sister, Shadow and Bone

 

Reported by Garry

Radar Girls by Sara Ackerman is a historical novel set in World War II in the Hawaiian Islands.  While this book is fiction, it is based on the true story of the women of the Women’s Air Raid Defense – the only civilian organization used by the military to replace men in active duty.  Daisy Wilder is a young, carefree woman who volunteers for the WARD project in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Overcoming resistance and sexism by the military brass, Daisy and the other women come together to help land planes at blackout airstrips, monitor unknown aircraft around the islands, and set aside their differences to save their loved ones on the front line.  A tale of perseverance, heroism and sisterhood, our reader loved this book, and found it engrossing and enlightening.  A recommended read!

 

 

Someone We Know by Shari Lapena is a thriller by the award-winning author of The Couple Next Door.  A mischievous teen breaks into the neighborhood homes and computers for the fun of it, not causing any harm.  Then a beautiful young wife has goes missing and is found murdered.  The teen’s fingerprints are all over the dead woman’s home as well as other homes in the area.  His mother and other ladies start investigating and discover that their seemingly charming, quiet neighbors are anything but.  Secrets come out, lies are revealed, and lives are forever altered.  Our reader quite enjoyed this taunt thriller, stating that it took a little while for her to figure out what was going on, but once she did she really enjoyed this book.

 

The Stargazer’s Sister by Carrie Brown is a historical novel set in eighteenth-century Germany and England and but is based on true events.  Caroline Herschel is the sister of composer and astronomer William Herschel and is an astronomer in her own right before women astronomers were accepted.  Caroline, or Lina, as she is known, is treated as the family’s drudge maid until William brings her to England to run his household.  Devoted to her brother, she does so with fervor and precision for years until William announces that he is going to be married.  Caroline Herschel was an accomplished scientist and astronomer in her own right, becoming the first woman in the United Kingdom to hold a governmental job, and was the first woman to receive a salary as a scientist.  Brown fills in the gaps in the historic record of Caroline’s life with elegant prose and imagination.  Our reader thoroughly enjoyed this book about a little know, but greatly important woman and highly recommends it. 

 

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo is a young adult fantasy novel, and the first book in the Shadow and Bone trilogy which includes Siege and Storm, and Ruin and Rising.  Our reader recommends this book as being much better than the current Netflix series.  The story follows Alina who is an orphan, and her friend Mal.  These young children are tested for magical abilities, and recruited into the Grisha – the country’s elite magical military force.  When Alina unleashes a magical force she did not know she had, her history starts to become clear, and her future (and that of her country) becomes endangered.  Our reader stated that this novel is really good, and very much enjoyed the detailed, imaginative world created by the writer. 

 

 

 

Also mentioned:

Postal Seance: A Scientific Investigation into the Possibility of a Postlife Postal Existence by Henrik Drescher

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

Dog On It by Spencer Quinn

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Nightfall by Nelson DeMille

The Little Regiment by Stephen Crane

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

What a Dog Knows by Susan Wilson

The Dog I Loved by Susan Wilson

Tiffany’s Table Manners for Teenagers by Walter Hoving

O Pioneers by Willa Cather

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog

Shadowlands by William Nicholson

The Man with the Silver Saab by Alexander McCall Smith

The Women's March: A Novel of the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession by Jennifer Chiaverini

Nevermore: Tursten, Secret Service, Appalachian Women, Turton, Bardugo, Jones

Reported by Kristin

Nevermore revisited a humorous little book which made the rounds last year, An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten. Translated from Swedish, this small book of stories revolves around Maud, an 88-year-old who plans to keep her inherited rent-free apartment for as long as humanly possible. Morals be damned, Maud knows what she wants and will do whatever she needs to make that happen. Our current reader called this a must-read, and noted that she loves this woman because she knows how to solve problems.

Another reader highly recommended The Secret Service: The Field, The Dungeon, and The Escape by Albert Deane Richardson. This account is not about the current day Secret Service, but written by a New York journalist who covered events before and during the Civil War in Mississippi. Our book club member noted that the language used was slightly different than we usually hear today, but that it was really good and easy to read.

Returning to the present, another reader picked up Voices Worth the Listening: Three Women of Appalachia by Thomas G. Burton. This powerful slim volume recounts the stories of three women from different backgrounds, although with common threads. Two were white women and the other was black, and our reader was able to empathize with their stories of family, drugs, education, and poverty set against the backdrop of the Appalachians. The depth of the struggles and the enduring hopes make these voices well worth the listening.

The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton has been making the rounds of Nevermore. This week, our reader only commented that it was hard to get started and that the story kicked in after about fifty pages. (Read past bookblog posts for more!)

Another thumbs down was given for Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. While this thriller received some rave reviews online, the murder and mayhem set at Yale University just didn’t feel realistic to our reader, and she moved on to another.

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones was also declared unrealistic, but hilariously funny and well worth reading. Charley Davidson is a private investigator with some pretty unusual abilities, such as being able to see dead people, and help them with their unfinished business so that they can move along to the afterworld. The paranormal aspects of the story are handled in a very humorous manner, and our reader called this first in a series of thirteen a very fun book.

Another reader agreed that Darynda Jones was rather funny, and noted that she was reading A Bad Day for Sunshine, the first in a new series featuring New Mexico sheriff Sunshine Vicram. Returning to her hometown of Del Sol after more than a decade away, Sunshine finds all sorts of challenges such as feuding neighbors, kidnapped teenagers, and hot men. While our book club member did not find it to be quality literature, it was light reading, which is sometimes needed in these trying times.