Esther, a young girl disappears on the way home from school. As the investigation into her disappearance unfolds we learn how interconnected the townspeople are and how they are affected by the girl's disappearance. The setting is in the Australian town of Durton where everyone seems to know each other. There are multiple narrators and they include the children who were Esther's best friends. We learn about the secrets that bind the characters together and how those secrets affect them over time.

While reading this book, I thought of Jane Harper's books and I think Dirt Creek is every bit as good as those.

Scrivenor creates a sense of place along with great well-developed characters. I especially love the way she got into the children's minds. Many authors who use children as narrators make them seem like small adults and that is not the case here. It is so well done that I could put myself back into their age group and remembered how I felt about my best friends.

I was so impressed by this book and can't wait to recommend it to my mystery-loving friends. I have no doubt they will love it too.

The main character, Jack, is hired as a fishing guide at a luxurious fishing lodge in Colorado. He arrives with his own baggage and I don't mean a suitcase. He is traumatized by the death of his mother and his best friend and blames himself for their deaths. How this adds to the story, I don't know because there is very little character development of Jack or any of the other characters. The bad guys are bad and we never learn much about them.

Jack spends a week guiding a country western singer named Allison K who miraculously at the end of the book seems to be able to call in a squadron of helicopters to help save the day.

The women in the book are always described in sexist terms. Big surprise Allison and Jack are attracted to each other. Trite.

The "thriller" builds to such a ridiculous, unimaginative and implausible conclusion that I felt like throwing the book against the wall (or into the trashcan). Honesty I have no idea why the critics thought highly of this book.

The only redeeming quality and the only time the writing was any good was Heller's descriptions of fly-fishing. He clearly is himself a fly fisher and loves it. I found those passages beautifully written. I think he should do a book of essays about fly fishing.

Heller's book The River is better than this one.

This excellent book gave me a better understanding of the horrors of WWI. My grandfather came back from WWI, with what would be called PTSD now, and this book gave me a glimpse into what he might have endured. The descriptions of the trenches, the dead and the living, many of whom suffered disfiguring injuries, was told in great detail.

I had not given much thought to the fact that after war, bodies must be identified to help bring closure to grieving relatives. It was a grisly task and this book does not gloss over these details.

The main character, Amy Vanneck, sets out to find her fiancé who is missing in action. She learns that she should search Two Storm Wood, the scene of a great atrocity, where her fiance may have played a part. She herself meets with danger as she tries to uncover the truth.

The author's research was meticulous and the book is well-written. There is romance and mystery which is entirely believable.

I highly recommend this book.

I loved A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility so I was looking forward to another great Amor Towles book. This book was a disappointment.

On the positive, Towles is a good writer, but too many negatives spoiled this book for me. It was disjointed and full of side characters that didn't add much to the story.

Why some of the characters were narrators and others weren't didn't make sense to me, The female characters weren't well-developed. The whole thing was too long.

As far as I'm concerned the car they were traveling in should have been a Rambler, because rambling is what this book was.

Not my cup of tea.

The Fields is a debut crime thriller by Erin Young. I was so glad to read on the back cover that this is the first in a planned series of novels featuring a police sergeant, Riley Fisher. I hope Young is hard at work on the next book because I can't wait to read it!

Young does an excellent job at creating a complex main character. It will be interesting to see this character develop in the future books.

The story is a procedural thriller filled with political corruption and agricultural espionage. The evil agricultural company will no doubt be recognized by many readers as Mansanto (called Agri-Co in the book). The murders are grisly but also a bit weird and made me anxious to know what kind of person the murderer was.

My only criticism of the book is that I felt there was just a bit too much "over the top" action in the last few chapters. It was like the author was trying to throw in as many dramatic scenes as possible at the end and it became a bit chaotic. If they had been spread out a bit earlier I think that would have helped.

I recommend the book and look forward to the next in the series.

I absolutely loved this book. If I hadn't borrowed it from a friend, I would have gotten out my yellow highlighter and highlighted passages. This is my first Louise Erdrich book and I can't wait to read more of her work. Her writing is beautiful and lyrical.

One of the main characters in the book is based on Erdrich's grandfather (named Thomas in the book) who was a night watchman but also the tribal head of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota. He is informed that the US government is trying to dispossess them of their land.

The book follows many characters, primarily Patrice who is Thomas' granddaughter. Her sister, Vera, has left home but no one has heard from her. Patrice sets out to "the big city" to look for her and almost immediately encounters abuse and discrimination.

I loved the characters in the book because they were so real and unforgettable. Even days after reading the book I am thinking about them.

I live in a state with a large Native American population and I am aware of the poverty in which so many live. Erdrich succeeds in bringing awareness to many of the issues they face---missing and exploited women, discrimination, poverty, alcoholism. The book is even more moving because it is told by one of their own.

Now I'll buy my own copy and read it again with highlighter in hand!

I wanted to like this book, but I regret having even picked it up. It was grim and depressing.

I think Hannah writes well, but that's the only good thing I can say about the book.

The primary characters in the book are women and they suffer 99 of the time. Then there are the animals and land that suffer too. There really aren't well-developed male characters in the book and except for one or two, the male characters aren't very sympathetic. That is unfortunate because I think some strong male characters would have made the book better. Men suffered just as much as women during the Dust Bowl era.

I felt manipulated by the ending and won't go into detail because of spoilers.

One thing that this book did do for me, was to get me to thinking about what I read next. After the year 2020 and all of its sad news, this was the wrong book for me.

There are two books about the Dust Bowl that I think are
much better. Timothy Egan's non-fiction book "The Worst Hard Time" is excellent and Marisa Silver's "Mary Coin" is a good book.

An imaginative retelling of the myth of Ariadne. The sisters Ariadne and Phaedra are the children of Minos and Pasiphae. Their half-brother is the dreaded Minotaur who lives in a complicated labyrinth constructed by Daedalus. Each year grisly human sacrifices are made to the Minotaur and Ariadne can no longer bear it. She aids Theseus in killing the Minotaur. This is where the story begins.

The story is told from the perspective of the two sisters. It is safe to say that in this world, women get screwed---literally and figuratively. However, Saint does a good job making Adriadne and Phaedra show some determination.

Saint tells this story so well and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were times where I thought more detail would have enriched the story. I would have liked to know more about the initial attraction between Ariadne and Theseus. Was it really just his green eyes? Also, the part about Icarus and Daedalus could have been expanded because that myth alone is fascinating.

The pace and detail of the book got better after Part 1 and then it was a page-turner for me. Along with Madeline Miller's Circe, these re-telling of myths are wonderful. So many primal emotions---jealousy, revenge, lust, love. It's all there.

I gave this book 4 stars because the writing is beautiful. However, I hated the main character. Except for her love of nature and birds, there was nothing likable about her. I kept wanting to yell at her to get some therapy. If I had a boat, I'd sure never let her on it.

This is the first book of Simone St James that I have read and I loved it. It's like Bates Motel on steroids. I grew up in a town that had many roadside hotels just like the one on the cover of the book. I never thought of them as being haunted, but that's what I will think now whenever I see one.

It's a combination thriller, mystery and ghost book. It was a perfect distraction (much needed these days). I'm going to read more from this author.

Jane Harper continues to write winners. The Survivors is her fourth book and although it is hard to pick a favorite, this might be the best one yet.

The setting for this book is a small coastal town in Tasmania. Kieran Elliott returns home to help his parents move. He brings along his girlfriend Mia and baby daughter Audrey. We learn that twelve years prior a terrible storm happened and several people died, including Kieran's brother Finn and his partner. Kieran blames himself for these deaths because of a stupid error on his part.

Shortly after Kieran's return a girl is found murdered on the beach. As the murder is investigated, old secrets and resentments surface.

Harper masterfully reveals the past and present connections between characters in the book. She is also good at creating a small town atmosphere. The red herrings were great and I was kept guessing up to the end.

I highly recommend the book and I can't wait until her next one!

I'm sorry to say this book is just horrible. Stomach-turning grisly violence. I'd hate to be in this author's head. I have no idea why someone would write a book like this unless they enjoy knowing they gave the readers nightmares.

A compelling story about a mother and her young son fleeing violence in Mexico. With so many stories about immigrants these days, it was good to read a book that described the harrowing journey immigrants must make when there is no other choice but to leave their homeland.

This book is a page-turner. The characters will stay with you and unless you have a heart of stone, you will come away with a deeper sympathy for those who must flee.

A fabulous food memoir written by Bill Buford. This book and his other book "Heat" have convinced me that Buford belongs in the pantheon of great food writers (he's a great writer anyway). I loved this book about his adventures moving himself, his wife and their twin boys (age 3 at the time) to France so that he can learn French cooking. He figures they will stay for a few months, but that turns into five years. He chooses to live and learn in Lyon which is considered the epicenter of French cuisine. There he apprentices in various restaurants and a bakery.

He details his experiences with great humor and his passion for food is clear. He reminds us that cooking and eating are basic and should not be rushed. Here is a great quote from the book that explains the title: "We learned the taste of good food. That comes from a place, as it has for thousands of years, from a soil that is a testament to its ancient history. Good food tastes of itself."

Great book for a food lover, cook or anyone who loves good writing.

Best friends Jack and Wynn embark on a river trip which should be idyllic but is not. We know from the first sentence that there is a fire up the river. As they are traveling in their canoe, they meet a pair of Texans who are camping out and who seem unconcerned about the fire. As they head on they overhear a couple having a heated argument.

Thus begins a good action, adventure story. The author is clearly an outdoors man and his descriptions of the river and surroundings are beautiful. I loved the pace of this book which builds into a thriller. You are likely not to put the book down until you are finished.

I do think the author's descriptions of the Texans were somewhat stereotypical and I wanted to know more about the arguing couple (especially the husband) and their relationship. The reasons for violence in that marriage didn't make sense to me.

This book is a great read and one that I think most men would enjoy. I'm always looking for a good "guy" book and The River is now on that list.

This book was touted as a "seductive, gothic-infused debut of literary suspense." I do not agree. I guess you could call it a slow burn when the real mystery part doesn't unfold until you are 30 pages from the end. Every time I thought there was a bit of suspense building up, it would vanish by the next sentence. I can't begin to count the number of times I was left up in the air thinking about abandoning the book.

The main character arrives at an isolated boarding school and from then on, I wondered if it was because she was a zombie. I couldn't tell if she had feelings or didn't have feelings. I think the book would have been improved greatly had the author created a more likable character.

There is something mysterious going on in the school, but we never find out completely what it is. It has something to do with mind control, I guess. The main character sleepwalks through daily life and that's about all the narrative deals with. Every now and then something potentially dramatic happens, but there is no follow through.

And what is a plasm pin anyway?

I think the author has talent and perhaps her next book will be better.

Winston Churchill was not exaggerating when he said that the future of Western civilization depended upon the outcome of the Battle of Britain. Late 1940 and early 1941 truly was an historic time in the life of the world, and for those wanting or needing a refresher, this book is a good one.

All of the stories in the book have been told before by others and better, but Mr. Larson performs a service by telescoping them into one compact book. The book has its flaws: little is written about the Battle of the Atlantic, the importance of Churchill's speeches is underplayed, and it glosses over some of the major strategic considerations that went into Churchill's decisions, but we learn quite a lot about what life was like in London during the bombing Blitz that Hitler and Goering unleashed on the British Isles in the mistaken belief that the British would crumble and seek a peace deal with the Nazis. Clever use of German propaganda minister Goebbels's diaries also remind us — a useful reminder — of how easily some government officials find it to lie.

Mr. Larson relies mostly on secondary sources, but the ones he uses are reliable. Far more detail is available in any good Churchill biography, but those tend to omit stories about everyday life in London. Knowing what Londoners found to eat, the sexual license of the times, the nights of terror, and the unadulterated courage of the English people provides much needed context. And Larson is, as ever, an entertaining writer.

When the United States entered World War II it had been only twenty years since American women were allowed to vote. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that in 1942 the male power structure, especially that of the Army Air Force, believed that women could not fly airplanes.

That was nonsense, of course, as this oral history of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) aptly demonstrates. It is a well written story of the women who ferried practically every kind of airplane the United States built during the the war all across the country. They were pioneers in the air, but also pioneers in the women's movement and the struggle for equal pay and equal rights which continues.

I wish the book had more historical context. I would have liked to read not only about the women who flew these planes, but also the women who built them, and how women generally fared during the war. It would have been good also to have some information about what happened to women in the military between the sad, unnecessary disbandment of the WASP and U.S. Air Force Major Nicole Malachowski, the first female USAF Thunderbird pilot who addressed these WWII pilots at their last reunion. Hopefully, Dr. Sharp Landdeck will write that book too.

This reviewer assumes the final edition of the book will have an index which the review copy lacked. It needs one.

Women in the United States had come a long way by the time we reach the most moving part of the book. In June 2009 the preeminent American politician of the early 21st Century, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, Nancy Pelosi, said to them, "We are all your daughters; you taught us how to fly."

I wanted to like this book more than I did, so my feelings about it are mixed. 3.5 would be my ideal rating.

I have always wished that antiques (in this case a piano) could talk and tell us their history---where they have lived, who owned them and what they witnessed.

It is 1962 and Katya lives in Russia and is given a Blüthner piano. She becomes a gifted pianist, but when her abusive husband insists that they move to America to better their lives, she is forced to give up her beloved piano.

Fast forward to 2012. Clara lives in California and works as a talented auto mechanic (I never could figure out why the author made her an auto mechanic). Her father gave her the Blüthner for her twelfth birthday. Shortly thereafter her parents die in a house fire. Clara's current relationship is coming to an end and she decides she needs to sell the piano.

It is after this that the stories start to converge and we learn the connections between the characters and the piano.

The narrative alternates back in forth by chapter and by character. (I'm getting really tired of this method of story-telling, but so many authors seem to adopt this technique these days.)The story felt forced and implausible at times and why do authors feel they need to throw in a sex scene or two? (I'm tired of that too.)

There were times when the book was a bit of a thriller and I would get hooked into thinking that it was going to be a page-turner, but that never happened.

Clara was not a terribly likable character and is perhaps one of the reasons the book fell short for me.

And finally I hated the ending.

If you hate quotation marks, love depressing books, need more reasons to hate America, like upsetting scenes of torture and killing, then this book is for you.