The Big Empty

Elvis Cole takes on a missing persons case for a social media influencer in The Big Empty (#1,315) by Robert Crais in his ongoing series.  Needless to say, it does not go well.

Approaching the tenth anniversary of her father's disappearance, Traci Beller wants to re-open the case after fruitless years of searching.  Elvis finds it hard to turn down the cute girl-next-door muffin baker, so he agrees to look, despite the objections of her manager and staff.  He doesn't expect to find any trace until he does...

And people most definitely do not want him looking.  He calls in Joe Pike for assistance but too late to avoid a beating that leaves him for dead.  All that does is make the pair more determined to solve the case and protect those who might still be in danger.  But you can't unsee something, the quandry Elvis and Joe find themselves in.

I thought I had this one figured out part way through.  I did not!  And I didn't even see it coming!!

If a good mystery/thriller is your cup of tea, you can't do better than Robert Crais' Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series.

John Lewis: A Life

David Greenberg has produced a biography of "Conscience of the Congress" civil rights leader and activist John Lewis worthy of your time in John Lewis: A Life (#1,314).  Rising from a poor rural Alabama farm family through multiple arrests and beatings to a seat in Congress, where at the end of a long and fruitful life, he lay in state in the Capitol rotunda in Washington, this book covers it all.  I came away even more impressed with the man after I read it.

That is not to say that this is a hagiography; far from it.  Greenberg captures his foibles and fumbles as well as the highlights.  What he has done is humanize John Lewis and reveal some of the struggles in both his professional and personal life.

Some of the events covered in Greenberg's book occurred before I was old enough to remember, but many of them I can vividly recall.  Coming across two people in these pages whom I met and spoke with makes me realize my own life is passing into history.  It's rather daunting.  It's also excruciating to realize that many of the gains John Lewis and his co-activists worked so hard to achieve are being hacked away in the Washington, D.C. government of today.  Now that's food for thought!

The Medici Return

More skullduggery at the Vatican in Steve Berry's latest Cotton Malone thriller The Medici Return (#1,313), this time involving an old Medici loan to the Papacy which could be called in by a legitimate Medici heir for billions of euros.

Stephanie Nelle has asked Cotton Malone to check on whether or not a specified amount of money is being stored at the summer residence of a German cardinal as a favor.  It is, but he realizes he's been set up when the police show up to arrest him.  Also caught in the web of deceit is the cardinal himself.  The money was planted to implicate him in a Vatican Bank scandal presently on trial in the Holy City.  But who is pulling the strings?

The trail leads from Cologne back to Florence and the medieval city of Sienna, just in time for its famous Palio horse race, tracking the ancient documents signed by Pope Julius II and Giuliano Medici.  Good thing there's no Medici heir...

Berry delivers another fast-paced thriller in colorful settings.  As always, he separates the facts from the fiction at the end of his novel.  There's usually some history for me to follow up on after reading one of his books.  I definitely have to put Sienna on my "To Visit" list!

Now Or Never - Thirty-One On The Run

I can't believe Now Or Never (#1,312) is the thirty-first Stephanie Plum novel!  Janet Evanovich keeps pumping them out, but somehow the books never get old.  She's one of the few writers who can actually make me laugh out loud.

Stephanie is really in a pickle here.  She's finally engaged.  To two different men.  How's a girl to choose?  These things just happen.  Meanwhile, she's got to bring in some FTAs to earn enough money to start refurnishing her fire-bombed (for the third time!) apartment.  She's getting tired of smelling like a s'more all the time, so some new clothes wouldn't hurt either.

She's hot on the trail of one of the most dangerous mob bosses in Trenton, a masked Robin Hoodie whose spoils go to the homeless and a self-proclaimed vampire.  Who knew going to a laundromat could be so dangerous?  Or that there would be so much at stake?

Lots of decisions for Stephanie, aided by her usual crew of Lula, Connie and Grandma Mazur.  Does she choose wisely?  You'll have to read Now Or Never to find out!

The Lotus Shoes

Set in China at the end of the nineteenth century, The Lotus Shoes (#1,311) by Jane Yang tells the stories of two young women, mistress and slave.  Chapters alternate between Little Flower, the slave and Jinling, the daughter of the First Wife in a wealthy household.

Little Flower is sold by her mother at age six to the powerful Fong family.  Her sacrifice will save her mother and brother from death by starvation. Her mother has tried to do right by Little Flower by beginning the process of foot binding to produce "golden lilies".  No Chinese woman can rise above peasant status without them.

Jinling has been spoiled all her life as the favorite of her father in a house full of women.  When Little Flower is given to her as her personal slave, she takes out her frustrations on Little Flower.  She orders Little Flower to unbind her feet before her "golden lilies" are fully formed, setting in train a life of misery.  Jinling is jealous of Little Flower's ability to do exquisite embroidery, winning Lady Fong's attention.  

When disgrace expels Jinling from her home, she takes Little Flower with her into an even more perilous situation in a Celibate Sisterhood run by her aunt.  She is compelled to labor in a silk-reeling factory.  Treated as a peasant herself, she watches Little Flower rise in the factory as she brings her embroidery skills to bear to improve her own and others' positions.  Jinling finally sees a chance to topple her rival forever.

While I did find the story interesting, and the many details of life in a rich Chinese home fascinating, I was less impressed by the characters of Little Flower and Jinling.  I found them too one dimensional.  Little Flower had a difficult, painful and brutal life while soldiering on stoically.  Jinling, on the other hand, was almost always portrayed as mean, spiteful and selfishly self-involved.  And to have the final confrontation between mistress and slave be over a man was a bit too much for me.  I certainly didn't find him worthy either of the obsession by Jinling, or the capitulation by Little Flower.  Ho-hum.  Read it for the insights on Chinese domestic life.

Worst Case Scenario

So glad I'm not flying 4 - 6 times a week anymore after reading T.J. Newman's lastest thriller Worst Case Scenario (#1,310).  First she wrote about a pilot's family being held hostage so he will be forced to crash the commercial jet he's flying.  Next, a plane goes down in the ocean shortly after takeoff.  Will there be any survivors?  This time, the worst-case scenario is a jet crashing into a nuclear power plant in the Midwest.  Meltdown, anyone?

It's nail-biting stuff, but T.J. Newman (a former flight attendant) adds enough human interest in the character sketches of the townsfolk cut off by the crash, and the staff of the nuclear power plant in the middle of an ordinary day when the unthinkable happens to make you root for them all.  I have to admit going through a number of tissues while I was reading.  I was totally wrapped up in the story she spun.

Her first two novels are coming out soon as major movies.  I'm sure Worst Case Scenario will follow.  The question is, do I actually want to see it on screen, or was picturing it in my head the farthest I want to go?  You'll have to decide for yourself, but no matter what, remember that the book is always better!

Banyan Moon

Maybe I just picked the wrong time to read Thao Thai's novel Banyan Moon (#1,309).  It's been a popular book club choice, but I have to admit I got bogged down in the middle, and just barely managed to soldier on and finish it.  Should I have bothered?  I'm not sure.

Banyan House takes a central role in this family saga of three generations of women, the oldest of whom came from Vietnam at the end of the war in the 70s.  The point of view rotates between the grandmother, mother and daughter at different points in their lives.  Relationships are fraught with love and jealousy amongst them poisoning their attitudes.

Ann, the youngest has escaped the backwater Florida town where she grew up as soon as she graduated high school.  But her unexpected pregnancy brings her back to Banyan House just after her beloved grandmother dies.  Much to their surprise, Minh has left Banyan House jointly to Huong and Ann, in hopes that it will bring this mother and daughter closer.  Maybe.  But the story just petered out at the end in terms of emotional punch, leaving me with a meh attitude about the book.  There were also a number of elements throughout the story which were just left hanging.  For example, there were mysterious hints dropped several times about just how Minh acquired the crumbling mansion in the first place.  No satisfactory explanation was ever given.  If it wasn't part of the plot, why hint at it?

Perhaps it's also because I just finished reading Amy Tan's debut novel The Joy Luck Club whose story of Chinese mother/daughter relationships is so compelling it was hard to put down.  I kept drawing parallels between the two books and Banyan Moon suffered in the comparisons.

Just as aside, Thao Thai also writes under the name Nora Ngyuyen, and I really enjoyed her Adam and Evie's Matchmaking Tour.   Perhaps you should check that out instead!

The Joy Luck Club

It's hard to believe that The Joy Luck Club (#1,308) was Amy Tan's debut novel back in 1989.  She has since become a doyenne of American literature, so that it's hard to imagine the pantheon of American authors without her.  Somehow, I've never gotten around to reading this seminal work until now!  I have to admit, it wasn't at all what I was expecting.

The novel is essentially the interwoven stories of four Chinese women fleeing World War II China and its aftermath, and their American-born daughters in San Francisco.  I always felt as I was reading it that it was a series of related short stories more than an integrated novel.  Each chapter stood on its own and was compelling in its own way. It made sense to me when I looked up the CopyRite that a number of the stories in this book were in fact originally published as short stories across a number of publications. 

Clashes of customs and generations, misunderstandings common between children and parents and decisions made with life-changing consequences make the stories here relatable, no matter the language spoken.  Trauma and coping, love and hope are universal themes.

The book when first published was so successful that a movie version was made.  I guess just from the few clips I saw from the movie's trailer that I was expecting women sitting around playing mah jong with a much more structured social dynamic.  It just goes to show that the book is always better than the movie!  This is a great time to read The Joy Luck Club for the first time or re-visit an old friend.

The Grace Kelly Dress

I seem to be on a roll reading about fashion with Brenda Janowitz's The Grace Kelly Dress (#1,307).  Grace Kelly set off a copycat frenzy after she appeared in a beautiful lace wedding dress for her church wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco. Every bride wanted to look like Princess Grace on her own wedding day.  This novel explores the story of one such dress, worn by three generations of women, each making the dress uniquely hers.

A talented Parisian dressmaker working in the atelier of the foremost wedding gown designer of her day is responsible for the impeccable construction of the Grace Kelly inspired dress for a wealthy customer.  In a twist of fate, she wears it on her own wedding day.  Carefully preserved, her American daughter dreams of the time when she will walk down the aisle wearing that dress.  Who stands at the altar awaiting her seems far less of a concern...  Rocky, the daughter and granddaughter, has her own sensibilities about wedding attire.  She initially has no desire at all to cave to tradition and wear the gown at her own wedding; it's just not her style.  What changes her mind about incorporating tradition into her quirks?

The story is entertaining, whether or not you ultimately agree with the fate of the dress in each generation.  Half the fun is deciding what you would have done with the dress, given the chance.  If you're interested in how fashion is made, this is the book for you!

There Are Rivers In The Sky

How to describe Elif Shafak's newest book There Are Rivers In The Sky (#1,306)?  It's about water, specifically two rivers, the Thames and the Tigris.  It's about characters spread across time and the world from Ninevah in ancient Mesopotamia to modern day London.  And it's about the oldest recorded epic in the world Gilgamesh.  Their stories are so cleverly intertwined and disparate yet they flow together in the end.  No matter how harrowing, you want to keep reading to see what happens next as the narrative jumps from one time period to another, and back again.

What possible connections could a modern day hydrologist living on a houseboat on the Thames, a poor Yazidi girl caught in the web of the ISIS uprising, a boy born on the bank of the Thames in Victorian London and the all-powerful Assyrian king of Nineveh have?  That's the tale that's spun here.

I know it sent me to search for more background information on the places Ms. Shafak writes about.  Isn't that the object of a book?  To make you think and explore for yourself things that have piqued your interest?  There Are Rivers In The Sky succeeds admirably.  Highly recommended.

A Dress of Violet Taffeta

I can't afford it, and I wouldn't want to wear it, but I do love looking at and reading about couture fashion.  Tessa Arlen's novel based on the life of Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon A Dress of Violet Taffeta (#1,305) fits the bill admirably.  Abandoned by a cheating husband, Lucy Wallace decides to divorce him rather than allow him access to her home and bed in the future, should he choose to come back.  She turns to her passion, dress designing, to keep her small family fed and clothed.  

She succeeds in her ambition, slowly rising to rival the premiere French fashion houses of the day when the Crown Prince's mistress shows off Lucy's designs to perfection to the Marlborough Set in London.  Since everyone wants to wear a Lucile, Ltd. dress, it also places her in the orbit of Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, a Scottish baronet and her future husband.  A trip to New York to oversee her new American design studio puts Lucy onboard the Titantic.  Although both she and her husband survive the ordeal, their relationship is never the same.

It's a fascinating story with luscious descriptions of her designs which helped revolutionize women's attire in the Belle Epoque.  The Victoria & Albert Museum in London mounted an exhibit of Lucile, Ltd.'s designs with a lavish catalog which you can purchase online if you are lucky enough to find a copy.  

I loved the name chosen for this novel and stumbled upon a real-life story brought to vivid life in these pages.  If you are a clothes hound this may be the ideal read for you, too. 

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp

If you're looking for a dark, twisty murder mystery, The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp (#1,304) by Leonie Swann could be your ticket.  Set in the small English village of Duck's End, Sunset Hall's occupants are isolated by the rest of the community.  There's something off about the elderly people who live there by their own rules.  So when there's a series of murders in the village, all committed by the same antique gun, the villagers aren't exactly jumping in to help find out "whodunit".

When Agnes Sharp and her companions at Sunset Hall set out to find out who is responsible (and who might be next!) they are forced to confront some of the truths of their own pasts.  With the help of a feisty tortoise named Hettie, and a visiting grandchild (not allowed under Sunset Hall's covenant!) Agnes and her friends uncover secrets about the big house across the road and the glossy retirement community across town.  Now, if only they can remember what they learned long enough to let the authorities know!

Not your usual murder mystery!  It's translated from the German by Amy Bojang, so maybe that's why it doesn't quite follow the usual English murder mystery tropes.  Enjoyable.

Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction

 I wish I had read Lynne Olson's biography Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeaologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction (#1,303) before I went to Egypt and before I read Fiona Davis's The Stolen Queen.  Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt led such an amazing life I can't believe I never heard of her before having this book recommended by the Egyptologist leading my tour.  If you've read Fiona Davis's book, you'll realize how much of Christiane's life experiences were incorporated into her character of Charlotte Cross.

Christiane Desroches was educated at the Louvre, taught in their school, helped rescue priceless Egyptian antiquities from the Nazis during the war, and came back to an empty museum to join the Resistance.  Although she was a curator at the Louvre, Desroches's real love was her Egyptian field work.  She participated in digs all along the Nile.  As a woman, most Western Egyptologists treated her as a pariah, suitable only for sketching or labeling the artifacts, not doing the actual digging.  They also did not care for the fact that she treated the Egyptian laborers who actually did the work as members of the team, learning to speak Arabic to better communicate with them, and treating their injuries and illnesses.  Many of the actual finds that she made were appropriated in scholarly works by her male colleagues.

But because she was trusted by the Egyptians themselves, when the political climate changed after World War II, she was invited back to consult as the work to uncover Egypt's past was given over to the Egyptians themselves.  When the decision was made to build a huge dam at Aswan to control the flooding of the Nile, it was Christiane who rang the alarm bells about the potential loss of unique cultural sites to the flood waters of the dam.  Persuading the newly formed UNESCO to bring together an international coalition to relocate the temples at Abu Simbel and Philae, among others, was her brainchild.  It's an amazing story.

 I enjoyed looking at the photographs of people and places included in the text, but I must admit I did find a couple of omissions puzzling.  Christiane was married, and had a son, but no pictures of either appear in the text.  She apparently did not want to talk about either of the men in her life.  There always have to be some mysteries in life!

Even if you never plan to go to Egypt yourself, this is a fascinating life story of someone who seized every opportunity given to her. 

The Dead Guy Next Door

A rom-com murder mystery?  Somehow Lucy Stone makes it work in The Dead Guy Next Door (#1,302).  Riley Thorn has been reduced to living in a studio apartment in a converted mansion in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  She used to have a respectable job, a husband and her own mini-mansion.  But that all changed when her cheating husband's father managed to get her fired and owe her ex alimony!  And if that's not bad enough, she keeps having visions of her creepy neighbor next door being shot.  Riley tries warning him, and even notifies the police about what she can see coming.  Does anybody believe her?  Of course not, until he's shot and Riley goes after the killer, making her suspect number one.

Enter Nick Santiago, private detective.  He knows Riley didn't do it, but he's a chorus of one.  As she insists on being involved in the investigation, things go from bad to bizarre with her elderly neighbors stepping in to "assist".  And then Nick meets Riley's psychic family.  Could things get any weirder?

If this mystery doesn't get your mind off your own troubles, nothing will!  And, oh, by the way, there's a lot of sex in this book, so be prepared, but give it a try!  I'm looking forward to the further adventures of Riley and Nick.

A Novel Love Story

To quote Ashley Poston from her own book, A Novel Love Story (#1,301), "An utterly skippable read."  So I did.

The premise is promising: an avid romance fan on her way to a readers' retreat takes a turn into a valley where everything uncannily resembles a series of romance novels she is obsessed with.  She's literally in the middle of her favorite books.  Unfortunately, it failed to hold my attention, so I bailed.  My stack of to-be-reads is too big to spend more time on A Novel Love Story.

The Rom-Commers

Katherine Center's book is so well named: The Rom-Commers (#1,300).  It's a romance and it actually is funny!  Most authors seem to get the first part right, but not much the comedy element.  This book should be the poster child for the genre.

Emma Wheeler has had to suppress her dream of pursuing a career as a screen writer to become her father's full-time caretaker.  Not that she begrudges her role as she waits for her baby sister to finish her education and take over responsibilities.  So when her best friend from high school calls her from Hollywood with a fabulous opportunity to work with award-winning screen writer Charlie Yates, she jumps on the chance with the backing of her family.  When Emma arrives in LA, it rapidly becomes apparent that Logan hasn't exactly been upfront with either Emma or Charlie about his plan to have them co-write a rom-com script.  What could possibly go wrong?

Most rom-coms are enjoyable fluff if done well.  Read, and almost immediately forgotten.  What I really loved about this book was the surprising depth Ms. Center put into this story highlighting the roles of caretakers and the sacrifices they make on behalf of others, and those who suffer from chronic illnesses, both physical and mental.  The lows make the highs that much more precious.

If you're looking for the ideal rom-com, I'd say The Rom-Commers is it. (And Katherine Center even has two previous books made into rom-com movies on Netflix!  Wish I could see those!)

The Stolen Queen

It took me a bit to get into Fiona Davis' latest novel The Stolen Queen (#1,299).  The plot concerns the brazen theft of a popular Egyptian artifact, the Cerulean Queen, from the Metropolitan Museum in New York City in the midst of the annual Met Gala. 

We meet Charlotte Cross, associate curator of the Department of Egyptian Art, in charge of mounting the King Tut exhibit in a few weeks on its final American stop.  She has privately been researching her theory that Hathorkare, the subject of the Cerulean Queen sculpture, was more than a pretty face; she was a powerful pharaoh who ruled over and expanded the Egyptian empire.  Her reputation has been belittled by Egyptologists for years because of her sex.  Charlotte's research was mysteriously stolen that night as well as the statue.

Annie Jenkins is a nineteen-year-old who has just been given a rare opportunity to help Diana Vreeland with the Met's Costume Institute exhibit for the Met Gala.  Everything is going well until she unwittingly unleashes a disaster upon the night of the Gala.  Just like that, she's out of hope again.

How these woman form an unlikely alliance to solve the theft is the crux of the story. Annie has nothing to lose and nowhere to go, but feels an obligation to help Charlotte. Charlotte must overcome the tragedy of her past to return to an Egypt she vowed never to step foot in again.  Despite trying to shake Annie off her tail, Charlotte reluctantly finds she cannot do without Annie's help.  Together, they are strong.

As Ms. Davis says in her notes at the end of the book, Hathorkare is a thinly-veiled portrait of Hatshepsut, a rare female pharaoh.  The fictional Hathorkare's funerary temple which Charlotte and Annie visit in the novel, is real, as are the tombs described in the Valley of the Kings.  We did, in fact, just visit Hatshepsut's remains in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo.  

Ms. Davis also includes a list for further reading if this book piques your interest in all things Egyptian.  I would further recommend When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney.  It's much more to the point about female rulers and infinitely more readable than Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth by John and Colleen Darnell.

One small nit on Fiona Davis' research: you cannot see the Sahara Desert from the Valley of the Kings.  It begins much further south.  Go see for yourself!

The Bandit Queens

When I picked up Parini Shroff's debut novel The Bandit Queens (#1,298) I thought I was getting an Arabian Nights sort of fantasy/adventure, especially because of the striking cover art.  What I got instead was a novel of contemporary India which deals with the strength and importance of female bonds of friendship.

Set in a small rural village, Geeta is a pariah.  Everyone is convinced that she killed her husband when he disappeared five years ago.  So when a member of their five-person female microloan group defaults on her payment, the rest of the group decides that Geeta will supply the missing money.  Instead of being grateful, the woman she bailed out blackmails Geeta into killing her unwanted husband.  Once the word gets out, everyone wants in on the action...

It's a very black comedy where social norms, caste, money, religion and sex all play a role in rendering women powerless.  Geeta tries to change things by emulating the real-life heroine, the Bandit Queen.  Maybe by working together her microloan group can change things for the better for themselves and their village.

It was hard to read about the everyday lives most Indian women still lead, with its dire poverty and disregard for women other than as sex objects or breeding stock.  Still, if you don't know about these things, there's no hope of ever changing them.  The Bandit Queens is a real eye-opener.

The Twilight Garden

I've been holding onto Sara Nisha Adams' second novel The Twilight Garden (#1,297) as a treat to read at the right time.  I absolutely loved her debut novel The Reading List even the second time I read it.  Alas, I was disappointed this time around.  I'm sure The Twilight Garden will find its readers; it just won't include me.

This novel about a badly neglected London garden shared by two townhouses switches timelines between two neighbors who shared the garden forty years ago and turned it into a community asset, and the feuding present-day tenants goaded into action by a series of photos of the garden in its glory dropped through their letter boxes.  If you're a gardening fan, I'm sure you'll relate.  Since I'm not, I couldn't see the attraction of digging into the dirt and planting things constantly destroyed by foxes.

But the real story here is about the characters, all of whom have more than their share of problems and issues.  Frankly, I had to force myself to read all the way through to the end, hoping that things surely had to get better for one or the other of them.  By the end of the book, it sort of came together with a whimper rather than a bang.  There are plenty of books out there that I knew if I read them would make me feel depressed.  I didn't expect that of The Twilight Garden.

On a positive note, I really did like the cover art.  It's enough to make you want to read the book.  You'll have to decide that for yourself.

The Housemaid

Everybody talks about Freida McFadden's books at my book club, but until I found The Housemaid (#1,296) in my book bag recently I never had myself.  (I swear I don't know how it got there, but it's obviously fate that I read it!)  Okay, not really my choice of reading material, but now I understand how Ms. McFadden wound up on the top of the Best Sellers' List and has stayed there.

It really is a page-turner with plot twists I didn't see coming, right up to the very last page.  The author successfully plays with your mind while you read it.

I really don't want to say anything more about the book for fear of spoiling it for you if you've one of the few other people who haven't read it yet but be prepared to give up on doing just about anything else while you read it!

The In-Between Bookstore

I picked up this book at the last minute from a book club meeting because I saw the words "time travel" on the cover blurb, but when I saw that the main character was trans, I put The In-Between Bookstore (#1,295) back in my bag to take back to my next meeting.  Then I got a recommendation from my local library for this coming-of-age novel by Edward Underhill, and I decided to give the book a second chance.  I'm glad I did.

Darby is not having a great day.  The start-up company he works for in New York City has just failed, his landlord has just raised his rent on his studio apartment to an amount he couldn't afford even with his job, and he has to meet his friends for a birthday party at an unknown trendy bar.  It's enough to make him think about moving back home to Oak Falls, Illinois, just until he can get things sorted out.  He has an excuse - his mother has sold his childhood home, and he tells his friends he's going back home to help her move.  But in his heart Darby is at a crossroads; he doesn't know if he'll ever come back to his chosen family here in New York.

Back in Oak Falls, Darby is drawn back to The In-Between Bookstore, where he worked in high school.  When he walks into the store, it's all exactly as he remembered it - including his younger female self working behind the register.  Bumping into Michael Weaver, his best friend growing up on the street outside, Darby is forced to confront issues which he's never really resolved about his transition.

It's all very relatable when couched in terms of the painful process of growing up with additional layers to deal with.  How Darby deals with his past and his present make for an engaging story.  Take a chance on The In-Between Bookstore yourself.  I'll bet you'll be glad you did!

Upon A Starlit Tide

I haven't read a lot of romantasy to date, but Kell Woods' Upon A Starlit Tide (#1,294) was such an engrossing read that I'm going to have to change my mind about this genre.  As Ms. Woods herself says, the plot is a mishmash of the Cinderella and Little Mermaid fairy tales and both Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Anderson would be proud of what they've inspired.  And while we're at it, let's throw in a nod to Lisa See with her historical fiction discussion of Chinese foot binding.

Lucinde Leon grows up as the third and youngest daughter of a wealthy shipping merchant in eighteenth century St. Malo.  It's a time when the fairy folk still inhabit Brittany, but their influence is waning as they gradually leave the region and their powerful thunder stones behind.  With her crippled feet, Lucinde is most comfortable by the seashore and in the water itself to relieve their aching.  She's been befriended by an English smuggler, Samuel, who teaches Luce to sail and spins stories of his adventures at sea.  She dreams of seeing the world for herself.  Then one day, she spots a handsome young man clinging to piece of driftwood off her cove and dives in to rescue him, changing her life forever.

What makes this story stand apart for me is the word painting of Ms. Woods.  The words shimmer on the page.  The life of a wealthy mercantile family of the mid 1700s is accurately described in way that plants the story in a France that could have existed, but the fantastical elements give her the leeway to take her story to new places where seamaids are real, and magic exists in the very stones.

I really hated coming to the last page of this book.  I hope Kell Woods continues to work in this genre. I'll look forward to anything else coming from her pen. Highly recommended!

The Island of Missing Trees

A fellow book club member recently highly recommended I read Elif Shafak's novel A River In The Sky, but I haven't been able to get it from my library yet, so I started by reading an earlier novel by this Turkish/British author, The Island of Missing Trees (#1,293).  I must say, I've never read anything like it before.

In many ways, it's a Romeo & Juliet story, featuring a Greek and Turkish couple from Cyprus in the early 1970s, when such a pairing was not allowed as the island was divided in a fierce civil war.  It begins in a more recent London, however, with the couple's daughter acting out in her British classroom, scaring herself and her schoolmates.  Her mother Defne had died less than a year ago, and Ada is feeling increasingly isolated from her botanist father.  Kostas is absorbed by caring for a fig tree he is burying in their garden to preserve it, when someone from the past arrives to upset the household.

Told from a number of perspectives, including the fig tree itself, Kostas and Defne's story gradually unfolds from the 1970s to the recent past in fascinating glimpses of a lost Cyprus.  Not just the human aspects, but the effect war has on nature as well.

I know I will be thinking about this powerfully written book for a long time.  Highly recommended.

Christmas With The Queen

Christmas With The Queen (#1,292) cleverly weaves together the threads of Queen Elizabeth II's early Christmas speeches with those of two people involved in her household: Jack Devereux, a chef in the royal kitchens and Olive Carter, an ambitious reporter with the BBC assigned to cover the Queen's speeches.  It turns out that Jack and Olive have a history together.  Although they only see each other for a brief time each year as their duties separate them, there is a spark between them which plays out over the years.

The novel provided some unique perspectives on life in a royal household as Elizabeth sought to find her own voice as monarch, wife and mother.  Tradition was important but so was establishing a new order to suit her own style.  Jack and Olive each contribute to Queen's progress in their unique ways.  Jack through introducing some spice into the royal menu with his New Orleans-based cuisine, and Olive through her knowledge of what works to enhance radio, and later TV, presentations to bring out the best aspects of the Queen's speech. 

Jack and Olive eventually do come together, but it takes an excruciatingly long time to get there. Much as I liked the overall book, co-written by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb, I did feel that it bogged down about three quarters of the way through.  I could feel myself mentally shouting "Get on with it, already!"  And much as they include Jack's concentration on recipes from his grandfather, and putting together new and unique recipes to suit the royal household and later, Jack's restaurant in book format, there isn't a single recipe included for the reader!  That might have been a nice addition at the end of the book.  Just saying...

The Life Impossible

Matthew Haig's latest book, The Life Impossible (#1,291), has gotten mixed reviews from the critics.  If I remember correctly, their objections had to do with the fantastical turn his novel took.  Have they read his previous best-seller, The Midnight Library?  The fantastical is Haig's thing.

I enjoyed this story set on the island of Ibiza, a place I have never been to, but have now added to my list of places to see before I die.  The premise is that the protagonist writes to his former teacher about how miserably his life seems to be going, and in return, gets a lengthy letter from her, telling how an act of kindness many years previously led to her being left a house on Ibiza.  Recently widowed, she decides to explore her inheritance on the island.  Things do not turn out as she expected!

I won't spoil things for you, but there is definitely a woo-woo aspect to her encounters as she meets friend and foe alike and her rather ordinary life is changed forever.  If you liked The Midnight Library, you won't have any trouble suspending disbelief to immerse yourself in The Life Impossible. 

Twelve Days of Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas, it's appropriate that I review Debbie Macomber's Twelve Days of Christmas (#1,290).  I must say, it was a bit of a letdown for me.  I normally enjoy her writing enormously, especially her holiday books, but this one didn't quite do it for me.

Julia is caught up in her job and volunteer activities as Christmas approaches in Seattle.  But she is seriously annoyed by Cain, the rude and grumpy neighbor across the hall.  The day he steals her newspaper in the lobby right in front of her is the last straw.  Her best friend suggests that "killing him with kindness" could be her best revenge.  If she blogs about it, it could help her achieve her ambition of landing a job in social media.  The Twelve Days of Christmas blog becomes an overnight sensation, of course.  Her kindness campaign is also working, though...

I guess my main problem with this book is the character of Cain.  He is so aloof and unpleasant that I could not buy the speed at which Julia won him over, or that she fell so hard for someone who so obviously wants to be alone.  Just something about his chauvinistic character never appealed to me in the least.  And if you can't root for the protagonists, who are you going to root for?

The book includes the first few pages of the next holiday book by Ms. Macomber, Dashing Through the Snow, and reading those few pages of a book I do remember fondly was enough to carry on with a Christmas tradition.  There's always next year!

Nosy Neighbors

The tenants of historic Shelly House have all received eviction notices; their landlord intends to tear down the building and replace it with a luxury high rise apartment house.  Not all the tenants are taking this lying down.  Freya Sampson's novel Nosy Neighbors (#1,289) does a wonderful job pulling together an unlikely cast of characters to bond for a single cause.

Dorothy Darling has been there in Flat 2 for over thirty years, and nothing is going to budge her.  Across the hall, her nemesis, Joseph Chambers, has yet another illegal subtenant - one with neon pink hair!  Then there's the unsocial tenant above her, the big man with the pugnacious and smelly dog, and Gloria with a constant parade of unsuitable men in and out of her apartment.  The Siddiqs, father and daughter, are about the only other tenants Dorothy is willing to tolerate, but even she misses the wonderful food odors which used to waft from their apartment while Mrs. Siddiq was still alive.  It takes a body being carried from Shelly House to begin to unite these reluctant neighbors with a little help from Joseph's Jack Russell terrier, Reggie.

I think I enjoyed this book so much because it reminded me of Clare Pooley's books about community-building from unlikely sources.  The book doesn't have a fairy tale ending, but Ms. Sampson does write a satisfactory open-ended conclusion.  Can't ask more than that!