Opportunity Rings

I'm not sure how I happened upon Opportunity Rings (#1,253) by Sheryl Steinberg, but it was a quite enjoyable bit of fluff set at the dawn of the smart phone era.  When it came out in 2009, the technology being discussed and explained to the reader was cutting edge stuff.  Now it's a nostalgic look back at the way things used to be before the vast majority of people of all ages became permanently welded to their phones, and multimillionaire "influencers" were still in the future.

But Erica Swift, the marketing director for one of the first mobile phones to add a few additional functions, is ahead of her time without having to actually, you know, know the tech.  That's why she has her best friend at the firm, Teddy, there to "mansplain" things to her.  Erica is going through some rocky times herself.  She's stunned when her husband announces out of the blue that he's leaving Erica for his boss, an older woman.  But her best friend Sloane is there to buck her up - she'll arrange for the best divorce lawyer in her husband's firm to handle Erica's divorce.  And in the meantime, she keeps Erica busy with a whole series of rich, eligible blind dates.  Sloane's only too happy to lend her closet full of designer dresses and shoes to the cause!  You know there's going to be a happy ending here.  The biggest question just might be: With whom?

There's no heavy lifting required in this trip down Memory Lane.  It's perfect for the beach or the bubble bath.

The Excitements

I don't know why CJ Wray's novel The Excitements (#1,252) hasn't gotten more buzz; I found it a thoroughly satisfying read.  What's not to like about two female WWII veterans behaving badly?

Josephine and Penny Williamson are being feted everywhere as two of the dwindling number of WWII vets in Britain.  Why, they've met Charles and Camilla!  But these sweet and doddering old ladies are not at all what they appear to be, and they like it that way.

The book jumps back and forth in time to tell their stories before, during and after the war.  Now they've settled into an enjoyable life with their great-nephew Andrew thinking up "excitements" to keep his beloved aunts occupied.  When they are nominated for France's Legion of Honor, Andrew takes over the planning of their trip to coincide with a business trip for his Mayfair art gallery.  His friend is hosting a black-tie exhibit for a major jewelry auction, and the aunties express an interest in attending.  Only nothing about the trip goes as planned, as in a space of a few days, secrets kept for decades are gradually spilled.  And oh, are they juicy!

It's all about the power of family and friends as the story unfolds.  Penny and Josephine are heroines unlike any others I've encountered.

I just have one minor nit.  I hated the cover art on this book.  The older women shown don't pull me in, and don't remotely resemble Josephine or Penny at various points in their lives.  But do yourself a favor and pick up this book anyway.  You'll be glad you did!

A Daughter of Fair Verona

So Christina Dodd can write romcoms!  Case in point: A Daughter of Fair Verona (#1,251), a riff on the classic Romeo and Juliet.  What if they didn't die at the end, but instead settle into becoming leading lights in Verona society, running a successful wine business and raising a passel of kids?

Lady Rosaline is their oldest daughter, and the sensible one in the family.  She's successfully matched off her three previous fiancés with their ideal mate while adroitly avoiding matrimony herself.  Until her parents match her with the infamous Duke Stephano. He's already outlived three wives, so Rosie is going to be his good luck charm.  Too bad for him when he turns out dead with a knife in his chest in the Montague's garden at the couple's betrothal party.  Since everyone suspects Rosie of wielding the knife (she didn't, as much as she would have liked to!) she has to get to the bottom of things.  To complicate matters even more, Rosie finally meets her one true love!  Could things get any worse?  Well, yes, they can!

A really fun romp of a read.  I'll read anything by Christina Dodd that comes out in this series, and lucky for us, it looks promising!

The Briar Club

I've heard mixed reviews about Kate Quinn's latest novel The Briar Club (#1,250), but I have to come down firmly in the "Loved it!" camp.  It's somewhat of a departure from her recent best-selling WWII era books, like Diamond Eye and The Rose Code.  

Set in a women's boarding house in Washington, D.C. in the early 1950s, America is still recovering from WWII.  Many of the women called to fill the positions in the Washington bureaucracy vacated by men during the war are still there, trying to scrape by.  Briarwood House caters to these single women.  The plot opens with a gory murder there on Thanksgiving Day.  If only the house could talk!  But wait, Briarwood House is a character here, adding a charming bit of whimsey to the tale.

Each section of the book is devoted to one of the women living under its roof: Grace, who fixes and feeds everybody; Nora who is proud of her position at the National Archives, but whose personal life is in turmoil; Bea can't quite get over the fact that her knee injury has knocked her out of professional baseball; Arlene, working enthusiastically for the House Unamerican Activities Committee under Joe McCarthy; Fliss, the perfect British mother who is slowly buckling under the weight of that perfection...  There are others, plus the Nilsson family who actually run the boarding house.  One thing is clear right from the start: each of these women is hiding secrets with deadly consequences.

I loved this book for the same reasons I loved Clare Pooley's two recent novels, or Sara Nisha Adams' books.  They all address the issue of community in a positive way while entertaining the heck out of the reader at the same time.  If only all the books we pick up turned out to be treasures like these!

Red Star Falling

I seem to be on a Russian kick with Red Star Falling (#1,249), the latest collaboration between Steve Berry and Grant Blackwood.  This is the second book in a series featuring Luke Daniels, a young Magellan Billet agent benefitting from his encounters with the legendary Cotton Malone.

Luke is in Europe, finishing up an assignment when he receives a cryptic message from an agent he thought was killed during a botched operation on the Ukranian/Russian border.  Could John Vincent still possibly be alive in a secret Russian prison?  Luke is determined to find out.  John has discovered a plot to unleash a deadly Soviet weapon on the Kremlin.  But who is behind the plot, and why?  More importantly, can Luke stop it?

Impossible escapes, tight and plausible plotting and nothing less than the fate of the world are stake here.  Buckle in and enjoy the ride!

The Man From St. Petersburg

The Man From St. Petersburg (#1,248) is one of Ken Follett's early novels, written more than forty years ago.  Even after I finished this book, I couldn't decide whether or not I liked it, though judging by the reaction of my other book club members, I seem to be in the minority.

In 1914, Europe appears to be on the brink of war.  One man, a Russian anarchist, is determined to hasten things along by assassinating a Russian diplomat sent to London to negotiate an Anglo-Russian alliance. Prince Orlov is a relative of both the Czar and the Earl of Walden, so a social visit to his English family for the London Season provides a convenient cover for diplomatic negotiations.   Although the twists and turns of the plot are relentless, this is very much a character-driven novel.  

Long-held secrets and thwarted passions play a huge role in the plot.  In fact, I was surprised by just how much sex drove the action.  Without giving away too much, the Earl of Walden's entire family become thoroughly embroiled in the plot, from his Russian wife Lydia, to his debutante daughter Charlotte. 

Honestly, other than the Earl himself, I did not like any of the main characters.  I thought Lydia's character was the embodiment of male sexual fantasy.  No wonder daughter Charlotte grew up so defiant!  Feliks, the assassin, has a backstory which is supposed to make him more sympathetic, but I could only see him as an amoral master manipulator.  But what bothered me the most were the incredible coincidences which kept popping up.  It got to the point where you could see the reveals coming up way in advance.

I guess after writing this, I come down more on the side of not liking this book, as much as I admire Mr. Follett's later work, but if you are one of the legion of Follett fans, you may want to judge for yourself.

The Lion Women of Tehran

Marjan Kamali's latest novel, The Lion Women of Tehran (#1,247) follows the friendship of two women who meet in Tehran when they are seven in the 1950s.  They live through tempestuous times in Iranian politics while negotiating their own paths through different social strata.  It makes for an interesting read.

Elli's family comes down in the world when her father dies, and she is forced to move from a mansion to the lowest part of town.  Her mother cannot cope with the change in circumstances, but Elli finds a warm substitute family when she meets Homa, a bright and engaging neighbor.  They become fast friends, competing to be the best, especially at school.  Homa's ambition is to become a female judge in a Persian society that is gradually opening up to women.  Elli isn't so sure what she wants out of life.

As the girls grow older, and enter university, Homa is drawn into political action.  Elli is more concerned with the young man she has met.  Homa's activism will eventually embroil both of them in danger from the Shah's Secret Police.  As Elli dutifully follows her husband to America as he takes up a teaching post at a New York University, Homa is jailed in Tehran.  The circumstances don't come to light until many years later, when Homa reaches out to Elli to shelter her daughter from a worsening situation in Iran.

Betrayal and heartbreak are at the center of this story, as the status of women in Iran deteriorates in the radical Islamic state which follows the Shah's ouster.  Much of the background will be familiar to you if you are old enough to have read the headlines of the time.  Ms. Kamali's novel puts a human face on that time and place in history.