New Fiction in April!

 

Baldacci, David  Hope Rises

Bannalec, Jean-Luc The Secrets of the Abbey

Chiaverini, Jennifer The Patchwork Players (Elm Creek Quilts)

Chu, John  The Subtle Art of Folding Space

Dailey, Janet  Kill for a Million

Graves, Sarah  Death by Chocolate Ladyfingers

Hannon, Irene Harbor Pointe

Harper, Jane Last One Out

Harris, C.S.  When the Wolves Are Silent (Sebastian St. Cyr)

Hepworth, Sally  Mad Mabel

Horowitz, Anthony A Deadly Episode (Hawthorne and Horowitz)

Hunter, Denise  More Than Friends

Jones, Sandie Killing Me Softly

Klune, TJ  We Burned So Bright

Mack, Catherine  This Weekend Doesn’t End Well for Anyone (Vacation Mysteries)

Michaels, Fern  The Final Storm

Novak, Brenda  Meet Me in Italy

Patterson, Susan & James The Mother-Daughter Book Club

Perrin, Kristen How to Cheat Your Own Death

Perrotta, Tom  Ghost Town

Perry, Devney  Rites of the Starling  (Shield of Sparrows)

Preston, Douglas  Paradox (Cash & Colcord)

Quinn, Spencer  Cat on a Hot Tin Woof (Chet and Bernie)

Richardson, Kim Michele  The Mountains We Call Home: The Book Woman’s Legacy

Rose, Karen Family Lies (San Diego Case Files)

Sandford, John Revenge Prey

Semple, Maria  Go Gentle

Shaffer, Meg  The Book Witch

Smiley, Jane Lidie: The Further Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton: A Novel

Straub, Emma  American Fantasy

Steel, Danielle  A Woman’s Place

Sutanto, Jesse  Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block

Nevermore: Lost in Paris, David and Goliath, Therapist, Spy, Other Queen, Greenlanders, Harlem Shuffle, Fuzz

 

The Nevermore members were out in force for this meeting!  The book discussion portion opened with Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson. Hannah Bond enjoys her life as a guide for Jane Austen themed tours, in part because living in England puts her an ocean away from her alcoholic mother in Florida.  She’s startled when her mother shows up at her door, telling her that they have inherited Hannah’s great-grandmother Ivy’s apartment in Paris.  Once there, they find themselves excavating the past, including Ivy’s accounts of life in the City of Lights when it was home to Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and other luminaries. As they discover Ivy’s secret past, mother and daughter try to forge a new relationship.  Our reader recommended the book as she really enjoyed it.  Another member said wistfully that she wished she could inherit something like that! 

 

Next up was Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants which our reviewer very highly recommended.  She listened to it on audio and also read the book. The author contends that sometimes the “little guy” may have to resort to extreme tactics in order to benefit the greater good.  One example was a staged photo which caught national attention in a way that speeches alone did not. This started a lively discussion about morality. Obviously, this is a thought-provoking book!

 

The Therapist by B.A. Paris is a thriller about a young couple who move into a new home in a gated community.  Soon they discover that the neighbors are keeping secrets, including that something terrible happened in the house they have just bought. Our reader said this was a really good thriller. She said she could usually figure out what was going to happen in such novels, but this one surprised her.  

 

The Spy by Paulo Coelho is a novel about Mata Hari, the woman who was alleged to have been an agent during World War I.  The book is in the form of a letter written by Margareretha Geertruida MacLeod (Mata Hari’s birth name) before she is to face execution.  Our reviewer likes Paulo Coelho’s work as a rule, but found this one not to up to his usual standard.  She was disappointed in the book, and said she could not recommend this title.

 

Another novel featuring a historical figure was up next.  The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory is the story of Mary, Queen of Scots at the time she was in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife, Bess of Hardwick. What seems like a sure way to curry favor with Queen Elizabeth for keeping her cousin soon proves to be a dangerous move as Mary seems to weave her plots.  Again, this book was deemed a disappointment from a usually reliable author.  The reader slogged through the pages, which she summed up as, “Everyone is miserable.”  The book was not recommended, unsurprisingly.

Jane Smiley has definitely picked up some fans after Perstroika in Paris made the rounds.  This time, The Greenlanders was the title and, despite it being a very different sort of book, it was met with approval.  The book is set in the fourteenth century, and revolves around a family in a Norse colony set up by Erik the Red as they struggle to survive in Greenland.  Our reader said she was loving it!

 

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead is set in the 1960s in (you guessed it!) Harlem.  Ray Carney has built up a small business selling used furniture and trying to keep mostly on the straight and narrow—well, more or less.  His cousin, Freddie, on the other hand keeps bringing Ray some hot items to sell, which he does. Then Freddie tries to make a big score and ends up involving Ray with some very shady and possibly very dangerous characters.  The reviewer said she liked the author, but was struggling with this book a bit, possibly because the characters all had names and then nicknames so it was hard to keep track of who was who.  She also said it was “as funny as heck.”

 

Finally, Fuzz:  When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach was lauded as one of the best non-fiction writers out there.  Roach likes to take somewhat off-beat topics and explain the science behind them in easy to understand fashion, and being hilarious along with it.  In this new book, she takes up the problem of human-wildlife conflict, from elk who cause car wrecks to gulls who take out a floral display to welcome the Pope.  Our Nevermore member said she laughed out loud while she learned and highly recommends anything Mary Roach writes.

 

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

The Summons by John Grisham

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss

Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire

Nevermore: Cattle Kingdom, Boop and Eve's Road Trip, Perestroika in Paris, Denali

Reported by Garry 

This week’s Nevermore book club selections included stories about road trips, cattle drives, talking animals and more. Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West by Christopher Knowlton fascinated our first reader with stories of the Old West prairies, and the indelible stamp they left on American life. Diverging from the Hollywood version of cowboys, the author examines the cattle industry from a business standpoint as both a financial journalist and the head of an investment firm, viewing the turn-of-the-century cattle industry in a larger context, while still bringing to life the cowpunchers who drove their herds across the plains on trails that eventually became our national interstate system. 

 

 The multi-award winning Boop and Eve’s Road Trip by Virginia native Mary Helen Sheriff was up next. Eve is a young woman struggling with both depression and her first year of college, whose best friend has just vanished. It doesn’t help the situation that Eve’s mother Justine is domineering and that their relationship is strained. Justine herself is estranged from her own mother, Betty (aka Boop.) Boop, seeing herself her granddaughter’s struggles, decides to hijack Eve’s trip to find her friend. Our reader found this book about the healing power of intergenerational family love to be laugh-out-loud funny, poignant and reflective, and highly recommends it to anyone who had or has a complex relationship with their mother or daughter.

 

 Perestroika in Paris by Jane Smiley is the funniest book you will ever read, according to our reviewer. This imaginative novel follows the adventures of Paras (short for Perestroika), a curious, spirited young filly who finds unexpected freedom in the city of Paris. Befriending Frida, a German shorthaired pointer dog, two ducks, and an opinionated raven, Paras is living the high-life in the City of Light, until she is befriended by Etienne, a young boy who lives with his secluded one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother. Our reader says that this book is a real screwball comedy and kept her laughing all the way through. 

 

Denali: A Man, A Dog and the Friendship of a Lifetime by Ben Moon demonstrates how someone can come into your life unexpectedly and change your life in ways you never thought possible. This is the memoir of Ben Moon, a socially inept young outdoor photographer who adopts a shelter pup named Denali. They change and enrich each other’s lives in ways that Ben never anticipated, and Denali sticks with Ben as he goes through treatment for colorectal cancer. When Denali comes down with the same cancer, Ben was able to return the care and affection that Denali had shown him during his battle. Our reader absolutely loved this book, stating how strongly it resonated with her and the relationship she has with her own dogs. She very highly recommends this book to any dog lover. 

Also mentioned:

 

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

 

Yours Cheerfully by AJ Pearce

 

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

 

The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind A Disaster by Jonathan Katz

 

Survivor: My Life as a Haitian Refugee by Leferne Preptit

 

The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline

 

Friends Like These by Kimberly McCreight

 

Betty Crocker Cookbook

Campbell’s Soup Family Cookbook

Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer

 

Best of Friends by Dee Riser and Teresa Dorme

 

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen

 

The Truth About Covid-19: Exposing The Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports and the New Normal by Dr. Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins

 

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian