Strangers in Time: A World War 2 Novel
by David Baldacci
Too predictable (7/27/2025)
3.5 stars, rounded down
I was torn about listening to this book. I’m tired of WWII themed historical fiction. But I adored Calamity of Souls. And there’s a mystery component to the book, which always draws me in. In the end, I found it was a mixed bag - good characters but a mostly predictable plot.
Baldacci did a good job of setting the scene of 1944 London. One scene was the most realistic and graphic of a bombing I’ve ever read. I won’t say I learned anything new, but he did an excellent job of incorporating quite a few facts without slowing down the pace of the story.
The characters are interesting and different. Two teenagers, on opposite ends of the economic spectrum, both find themselves without much of a support system. Fourteen year old Charlie is living with his grandmother after both his parents have died. And fifteen year old Molly has returned to London after five years away as part of the Pied Piper program. But yet, neither parent is at home to greet her, only her old nanny. And then there’s Ignatius, the bookseller who has lost his wife and is trying to keep her bookstore going. Charlie felt the most fleshed out. He’s got a strong ethical sense but it keeps coming up against the realities of poverty. And both he and Molly are often too afraid to confide in anyone what they’re up against.
The story moves along at a slow to steady pace. It’s a sad story as it shows how many fell through the cracks in the social support system during the war. As to the mysteries, they were all horribly simplistic and I was able to figure them all out quickly. The ending relies on one coincidence after another which was another disappointment.
I listened to this and there is a full cast of narrators that do a very good job.
The Good Liar: A Novel
by Denise Mina
Steady pace, good characters (7/27/2025)
It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by Denise Mina, but I’ve liked the ones I’ve read. I’m adding this one to the list. The plot was solid, the characters fully fleshed out. Dr. Claudia O’Sheil is about to blow the lid open on how her forensic evidence falsely accused a man and led to his conviction in a double murder one year earlier. Claudia was behind a blood spatter analysis program that became the industry standard and was a key component in the case. Now what she has to say will destroy not just her life but that of several others.
The story veers back and forth between the present day and the time of the murder investigation. It moves at a nice steady pace and there’s a constant underlying sense of tension.
Mina’s writing is descriptive without being overly wordy - that ability to nail a character or a scene in just a sentence or two. The book delves into class, corruption and power.
Claudia is a great main character. She’s dealing with her husband’s untimely death and some serious family issues. And she’s finally trying to grow the spine she lacked the year before. She let herself get sucked in by her ego, her desire to maintain her reputation and a lifestyle she’d never had before. It’s unclear until the bitter end whether she’ll have the strength to do the right thing.
This will not appeal to those that want their mysteries to be all about action. My one complaint was that Mina wasn’t consistent about using first vs. third person narration.
My thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown & Co for an advance copy of this book.
Lightning Strike: Cork O'Connor Mystery Series #18
by William Kent Krueger
Prequel to the Cork O’Connor series (7/12/2025)
William Kent Krueger is one of the finest contemporary writers in the US and one of my personal favorites. He has a real way with young male characters finding their way in the world. This story is a prequel to his Cork O’Connor series.
Within the first sentence of the Author’s Note at the beginning of this book, I had learned something new. For all I knew about the US government's attempts to eradicate the Native American tribes during the 19th Century, I was unaware of the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. This time, the government paid to relocate Native Americans to cities. Promises for decent housing and jobs, of course, came to naught. While not a meaningful part of the story, it helps explain the mindset of the day.
The book takes us back in time to 1963. Cork O’Connor is almost 13; his father the county sheriff. Cork and a friend stumble upon a body hanging at Lightning Strike, a former lumber yard and a piece of ground deemed sacred by the Native Americans. The man hanging was Big John Manydeeds, a local Ojibwa known and revered by the young boys. Initially deemed a suicide, it soon is apparent it’s a murder.
This is a complicated story, with lots of twists. I appreciated the balancing act Liam O’Connor was forced to take while trying to find solid evidence against high emotions on both sides. WKK does a fabulous job capturing the prejudice of the whites and the mistrust of the Ojibwas. As with his two stand alones, we watch a young man trying to find his own moral compass.
The book is more than a standard mystery, it’s a look at what it means to be a good person, “one who stands between evil and his people”.
David Chandler did a fabulous job of narrating this story. His performance heightened my enjoyment of this fabulous book.
Bring the House Down: A Novel
by Charlotte Runcie
A whole new spin on the Me, Too situation (7/12/2025)
Bring the House Down takes a whole new spin on the Me, Too situation and does it brilliantly. Alex, a popular theatre critic, known for his savage reviews, writes a one star review of a one woman show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Then he goes out for a meal, picks up the actor, has sex with her, all without ever telling her about his review which will show up in the newspaper the next morning. But she doesn’t just accept this. She revamps her show, exposing what he did and it’s a hit. More and more women come out of the woodwork, actors reveal how his reviews have hurt them. The man becomes a pariah.
The story is told from the perspective of Sophie, the “junior culture critic” also in attendance at the festival and sharing a flat with Alex. Through Sophie’s eyes, we are constantly reminded that there are two sides to each story. She raises some interesting points. “It’s not like with a bad review of a book or film, where the creative work is already out there in the world and done with, and the writer or the performer can just shrug it off and go onto the next thing. I can’t imagine what it must be like to get a bad review on the first night of your theatre run, and then have to get up again and keep going, putting yourself out there, knowing that people think you’re crap.”
I loved seeing Hayley, the actor, take matters into her own hands. But even she begins to wonder how everything will play out and what constitutes fairness.
The book lays out a lot of interesting points about creativity, acting and reviewing. It was a book that made me think, especially about to whom a reviewer owes their allegiance. And Alex has a point, no one wants to see a three star review. We are drawn to the dramatic. It would make for an interesting book club selection. Runcie knows whereof she speaks, having been an arts critic and columnist for The Daily Telegraph who frequently attended the Edinburgh Festival. And kudos to her for not taking the predictable way out with the ending.
I was less interested in Sophie’s personal story. She’s the typical working mom and there wasn’t much new there. It was a drag on the main plot.
My thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for an advance copy of this book.
The House Is on Fire
by Rachel Beanland
What I want from historical fiction (7/10/2025)
A favorite of 2023
The House is on Fire is Rachel Beanland’s sophomore effort and I was even more pleased with it than her debut, Florence Adler Swims Forever. The story covers the fire on December 26, 1811 at the Richmond Theatre. Plantation owners came to Richmond in winter for their social season. Thus, the theater was especially full on the 26th. The fire was the worst urban disaster of our young country, resulting in the death of 72 individuals, mostly women.
The story starts with the night of the fire and progresses from there. I wasn’t sure how Beanland would maintain any suspense once the fire was over and done, but boy, was I wrong. The story centers around four characters - Jack Gibson , a young stagehand; Sally Henry Campbell, daughter of Patrick Henry and newly widowed; Cecily Patterson, a young black slave who was acting as a chaperone for her young white mistress but was required to sit on a different floor, and Gilbert Hunt, an enslaved blacksmith who ends up helping rescue 12 white women from the theater. Each of these four made decisions at the crisis point which affected not just themselves but others. By switching between their POVs, the story maintains a brisk pace. Each of the four is also fully drawn and I was equally engaged by each of their stories.
The book does a wonderful job of showing the places of women and blacks in southern society. For example, when a young wife breaks her leg jumping from the window and the surgeon announces only her husband can give permission for her leg to be amputated. And, of course, black women are chattel to be used in whatever way a man wants. Let’s just say most of the men in the story don’t come off in a good light. There aren’t a lot of heroes in this story, at least white ones. But there are several heroines.
The writing is clear and succinct and it was easy to envision each scene. Beanland has the ability to give the reader a firm grasp on the time and place. There are several aspects of this story which have been fictionalized, but Beanland spells them out in her Author’s Note. She gives a rationale for each of those modifications. Overall, this is exactly what I want from historical fiction. It taught me about a moment in history that I previously knew nothing about while telling a good story.
My thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book.
The Great Believers
by Rebecca Makkai
Poignant and gripping (7/10/2025)
What an amazing, gripping book. The Great Believers tracks two different story lines. Mid 1980s Chicago, the AIDS epidemic is in full swing and Yale’s friends are falling ill and dying. Things truly go wrong at his friend Nico’s funeral when an ill placed word by Fiona, Nico’s sister, leads to a cavalcade of events. At least things are going well for his professional life, where as the director of an art museum at Northwestern University, he stands ready to acquire an extraordinary collection of modern art.
But then the reader gets to watch as assumptions Yale was living with fall away. In the second storyline, told 30 years later, Fiona is trying to track down her daughter who has joined a cult. The hunt takes her to Paris, where she reconnects with a photographer friend of her brother who captured life in “Boys Town”, the gay enclave in Chicago.
So often, I am not a fan of dual storylines. The current one is all too often merely a vehicle for the historical one. But not here. Fiona is coming to terms with the decisions she’s made. Did she sacrifice her family’s happiness to help her friends? I struggled with why Claire hated her mother so much. Her reasoning seemed blown out of proportion to Fiona’s faults. But then, children often hold their parents to impossibly high standards.
Makkai has done a wonderful job creating main characters I truly cared about. And both settings are richly detailed and easy to envision. It was a reminder of how awful things were when AIDS first cropped up, when there was little understanding and no cures. As another review said, Makkai did a brilliant thing by drawing parallels with the Lost Generation after WWI. This was written before the Covid pandemic, but younger generations may also find parallels with it.
I loved what Makkai had to say about survival, especially that sometimes life can be too long, when you are the last one left and the only one remaining to tell the stories, really hit home. It’s a poignant story which will really stick with me.
I listened to this and found Michael Crouch to be a great narrator.
The Elements: A Novel
by John Boyne
Powerful and thought provoking (7/9/2025)
Once again, John Boyne has crafted a book that drew me in and kept me enthralled. It is a powerful book. In The Elements, four interconnected stories explore sexual crimes and the different parties involved - the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator and the victim. The main character of the first story is a wife who remained obtuse to her husband’s crime and has now run away in the aftermath of him being found guilty. Next, there's the footballer who is on trial for supposedly filming his buddy’s rape of a young woman. Then a female doctor who rapes young boys because of a crime she was the victim of. And finally, a forty year old man who was once the victim of the doctor. The stories are all tangentially intertwined until the end, when everything comes full circle. The book presents a pebble in a pond aspect, watching the repercussions move outward.
Boyne manages to present each character in a straightforward manner. It takes a special talent to write from the first person POV in some of these situations. I didn’t feel sympathetic to the first three, but I also didn’t look away. Each was nuanced and I felt I was given a clear eyed view of their thoughts. Overall, it’s a book that covers different aspects of culpability, guilt, identity, forgiveness (or not) and survival. As always, the writing is beautiful. This is a deeply thought provoking book. It’s a book I’ll be pondering for a while.
My thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt for an advance copy of this book.
A Disappearance in Fiji
by Nilima Rao
Well researched and easy to envision (6/26/2025)
4.5 stars, rounded up
This well crafted, wonderfully researched historical mystery takes the reader to 1914 Fiji. Akal Singh is a young police sergeant who has been banished from Hong Kong to Fiji. He has yet to be received into the good graces of his boss. But a delegation from India (which includes only one actual Indian, the rest are English) is coming to town to investigate how Indian indentured workers on Fiji’s sugar plantations are treated just as a female worker goes missing. A minister insists the woman has been kidnapped and gets the newspaper involved. As the “highest ranking Indian” policeman, Akal is given the assignment to investigate. But he’s also told to make it all go away.
The story moves at a steady pace. The writing is descriptive and it was easy to envision each scene. Clues are scattered like breadcrumbs at regular intervals. Akal is a great main character and I found his back story compelling. He internally rails at the English that lump him with the “coolies”. He’s not always a sympathetic character, which adds to the depth of the story.
Rao does a wonderful job of showing the brutality of the workers' existence and the racism of the English ruling class. Even those that are more enlightened, still have elements of racism. Akal sadly realizes that his boss values politics over justice. I also got a kick that everyone under-estimated anyone who wasn’t a white man.
By dint of a comment in the Author’s Note, I’m this is meant to be the start of a series. And a big thank you to Recorded Books for making sure the Author’s Note was included in the audiobook. It was fascinating to learn Rao’s great-grandparents were part of the indentured workers program and what an impact it had not just on Fiji, but other areas of the British Empire.
I was less than enthralled with Sid Sagar as a narrator. He did a great job with Akal and the English, but a few of the Fijian voices sounded more Scottish than anything.
When the Cranes Fly South: A Novel
by Lisa Ridzén
Heartbreaking (6/26/2025)
2025
“At dinner one day, I snapped and asked what the hell the point of life was if I was too old for a dog.” Truly. I hate to think of the day I’m no longer capable of having a dog.
Bo is 89, is still living at home but with the help of caregivers. His wife has Alzheimer’s and has already been moved out of the house. Now his son wants to rehome his dog. Bo’s thoughts, which are basically a monologue to his wife, are a look back at his life - his domineering father, his loving marriage, his best friend and his fraught relationship with his son. These thoughts are interspersed with the log from his caregivers which provide a realistic look at his current life. Ridzen has done a wonderful job of fleshing out Bo, including his own beginning stages of dementia and his failing physical body. He realizes time is running out and there are things he wants to say.
This story just grabbed my heartstrings. It hit home, as I’m dealing with an elderly mother. I can see her world shrinking. And it’s definitely a balancing act between trying to allow her to make her own decisions and keeping her safe. I’ve even had the same discussion over the hospital bed but haven’t gone so far as to make the swap. I appreciated that other than the log, the story is solely from Bo’s point of view. It was easy to understand Hans’s motives, but Ridzen keeps us tightly focused on Bo and his desires. It’s not an easy book to read and it becomes more emotional as it goes on. Keep the Kleenex handy for the ending.
My thanks to Netgalley and Knopf for an advance copy of this book.
People Like Us: A Novel
by Jason Mott
Amazing writing (6/26/2025)
It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by Denise Mina, but I’ve liked the ones I’ve read. I’m adding this one to the list. The plot was solid, the characters fully fleshed out. Dr. Claudia O’Sheil is about to blow the lid open on how her forensic evidence falsely accused a man and led to his conviction in a double murder one year earlier. Claudia was behind a blood spatter analysis program that became the industry standard and was a key component in the case. Now what she has to say will destroy not just her life but that of several others.
The story veers back and forth between the present day and the time of the murder investigation. It moves at a nice steady pace and there’s a constant underlying sense of tension. Mina’s writing is descriptive without being overly wordy - that ability to nail a character or a scene in just a sentence or two. The book delves into class, corruption and power. Claudia is a great main character. She’s dealing with her husband’s untimely death and some serious family issues. And she’s finally trying to grow the spine she lacked the year before. She let herself get sucked in by her ego, her desire to maintain her reputation and a lifestyle she’d never had before. It’s unclear until the bitter end whether she’ll have the strength to do the right thing.
This will not appeal to those that want their mysteries to be all about action. My one complaint was that Mina wasn’t consistent about using first vs. third person narration.
My thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown & Co for an advance copy of this book.
The Good Liar: A Novel
by Denise Mina
Well developed characters (6/26/2025)
It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by Denise Mina, but I’ve liked the ones I’ve read. I’m adding this one to the list. The plot was solid, the characters fully fleshed out. Dr. Claudia O’Sheil is about to blow the lid open on how her forensic evidence falsely accused a man and led to his conviction in a double murder one year earlier. Claudia was behind a blood spatter analysis program that became the industry standard and was a key component in the case. Now what she has to say will destroy not just her life but that of several others.
The story veers back and forth between the present day and the time of the murder investigation. It moves at a nice steady pace and there’s a constant underlying sense of tension. Mina’s writing is descriptive without being overly wordy - that ability to nail a character or a scene in just a sentence or two. The book delves into class, corruption and power. Claudia is a great main character. She’s dealing with her husband’s untimely death and some serious family issues. And she’s finally trying to grow the spine she lacked the year before. She let herself get sucked in by her ego, her desire to maintain her reputation and a lifestyle she’d never had before. It’s unclear until the bitter end whether she’ll have the strength to do the right thing.
This will not appeal to those that want their mysteries to be all about action. My one complaint was that Mina wasn’t consistent about using first vs. third person narration.
My thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown & Co for an advance copy of this book.
Daikon: A Novel
by Samuel Hawley
Fabulous alternative historical fiction (6/26/2025)
Daikon combines the best of alternative historical fiction and a thriller. The premise is that in WWII, the Americans had not two but three atomic bombs ready to drop on Japan. But the first plane is shot out of the sky and the bomb doesn’t detonate and is recovered by the Japanese. A Japanese physicist, involved in their own efforts to design an atomic bomb, is brought in to try and determine how to use it against the US.
Hawley does a great job of setting the scene in time and place. The description of Hiroshima after it was bombed caused my stomach to roil. Hawley also doesn’t sugarcoat the effects of being near enriched uranium.
The characters are well fleshed out. Keizo Kan, the scientist, really wrestles with what he’s being asked to do, especially after seeing Hiroshima. What had been a hypothetical theory now has real world consequences. But the Thought Police are holding his American Wife and he is torn between wanting to rescue her and the death of hundreds of thousands more. And Colonel Sagara, overseeing the “program”, embodies the no surrender attitude.
Hawley has done his research and he imparts it to the reader without slowing down the story. I finally understand the mechanics of the atomic bomb. Be sure to read the Author’s Note which gives more background on what was happening in Japan during the last months of the war.
My thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book.
The White Crow: Philomena McCarthy #2
by Michael Robotham
Engrossing (6/26/2025)
4.5 stars, rounded up
The White Crow is an engrossing, fast paced second book in the Philomena “Phil” McCarthy series. Phil is a police constable, but she’s also the daughter of a well known criminal boss. Talk about walking a fine line! One night on patrol, she sees a child out in the middle of the night. Taking the little girl home, she finds the child’s mother dead, the victim of a home invasion gone wrong. Meanwhile, a jeweler is found at his burgled store with a bomb strapped to him.
The book flips between multiple POVs, including those of her father and uncles and the actual detective on the case. I appreciate that all the characters were well developed, to the point I wanted to see her father come out on top. Flip side, there was one senior police officer I wanted to see get his comeuppance.
Robotham writes easy to envision scenes. I kept finding excuses to read, including in the middle of the night. Trust me, this one does not help cure insomnia! I was willing to just keep reading. I hope that Robotham writes a third in the series.
The book would easily work as a stand-alone, but trust me, you’re going to want to read both books.
My thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for an advance copy of this book.
The Uproar: A Novel
by Karim Dimechkie
Perfect for book clubs (6/26/2025)
I will admit to grabbing an advance copy of The Uproar because of that wonderful cover and understanding it was about trying to temporarily rehome a dog. Not just any dog, Judy is a 150# Bull Mastiff with numerous health concerns. Sharif and his wife Adjoua are expecting their first child who has been diagnosed with leukemia in utero. The dog can’t be in their cramped apartment while the baby is treated. Needless to say, no one agrees to take the dog. Dog parents can absolutely understand the dilemma Sharif is faced with. And he ends up making a bad decision about who to trust.
The stress that Sharif is under is palpable. On top of the cascading problems resulting from that one poor decision, his marriage begins to show stress fractures. But he’s also totally obtuse.
Dimechkie’s writing was masterful. It was easy to envision each scene and feel each character’s emotions. My thoughts were ricocheting all over the place in how I felt about all the characters - sympathy, frustration and at times, despair.
The story would be a great book club selection. There are multiple meaty themes - sacrifice, what makes someone a good person, advantage, marriage, emotional affairs, cyber bullying. I highly recommend at least reading this with a buddy because you are going to want to discuss it!
The ending totally caught me by surprise. In fact, I’m still a bit in shock at how it played out.
Warning - there was one scene that had me squirming on behalf of poor Judy.
My thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown for an advance copy of this book.
King of Ashes: A Novel
by S. A. Cosby
Excellent audio experience (6/21/2025)
S. A. Cosby has done it again. I would award this more than five stars if I could. He excels at writing dark southern thrillers that pit regular folks against the forces of evil. In King of Ashes, Roman returns home to Jefferson Run, VA after his father is in a serious car accident that leaves him in a coma. Turns out, it wasn’t an accident, it was a message being sent to his younger brother to pay up on a large debt. In an effort to save his family, Roman, a financial advisor, makes a deal with the devil.
This is not a book for the faint of heart. There is a lot of violence in this book, a ton of graphic descriptions. But Cosby doesn’t rely on just fast pacing and dark plot lines; he excels at character development. Cosby focuses on the strength of family ties, of going all out to help siblings. As an only child, I found Roman’s willingness to help his screwup of a brother, Dante, amazing. I was totally engrossed to see how far Roman would be willing to go to save his family from the mess that Dante had landed them in.
As the story goes on, Roman steps further into the dark side and it was fascinating to watch him go down that slippery slope. Dante was also a fully fleshed out character. It would have been easy to make him into a caricature. But Cosby made him feel real. So real, I spent most of the book wanting to strangle him. The story encompasses so many deep themes - duty, loyalty, revenge, secrets, true evil. There is a Greek tragedy feel to it. By the end, I was gasping, it was so heartbreaking.
I listened to this and it was a fabulous audio experience. Adam Lazard-White was just the perfect narrator.
Broken Country
by Clare Leslie Hall
Great book club selection (6/21/2025)
Broken Country grabbed me from the first pages and never let me go. It was so intense; such an emotional land mine of a book. It starts when a dog attacks a herd of sheep and is shot dead by one of two farming brothers. Turns out Gabriel, the dog’s owner, has just returned to his family’s estate with his eight year old son. But as a teenager, he had had a passionate love with Beth, before dumping her for someone more of his social caliber. Now Beth is the wife of the other brother. Before long, a love triangle has started and a murder follows. What is unclear is who the killer is and who was the victim.
Told across multiple time periods, from the 1950s to 1975, it follows Beth’s life from when she meets Gabriel through the “present”. The book gives an excellent sense of time and place throughout. Told solely from Beth’s POV, Hall takes a risk when making her main character an adulterer. I couldn’t relate to her decisions, but I was engaged by them and everything felt very real.
I usually am not a fan of anything that smacks of romance. But this is much more a family drama and a murder mystery. And the characters are all so well developed, it was easy to become invested in their fates. The ending wasn’t a surprise. It played out exactly as I expected. But this wasn’t a book where I needed a big twist to feel fulfilled.
This would make an excellent book club selection. There’s so much meat her to discuss.
My thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book
Wild Dark Shore: A Novel
by Charlotte McConaghy
Haunting mystery (6/21/2025)
With Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy has once again crafted a haunting mystery based on climate change.
A family of four are the final inhabitants on an island in the Southern Ocean, near to Antarctica. Even they are due to leave, once they finish packing up the seed vault kept there. One day, a woman washes up on shore. Facts about both the woman and the family are parceled out like breadcrumbs. Told from the viewpoints of all five individuals, I loved that I had no idea whom to believe or trust. Everyone is hiding something and all are damaged. They have each lost someone and grief is a major component of their lives. I came to care for each and every one of them, especially the three children who have spent 8 years in this remote location.
McConaghy has excelled in putting the reader right on this cold, isolated island, full of penguins and seals, with the ocean full of whales. There is a constant sense of tension throughout. The ending was gripping and totally caught me off guard. I listened to this and the cast of narrators did a wonderful job.
My thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for an advance copy of this audiobook.
Too Old for This
by Samantha Downing
Dark humor (6/21/2025)
I love mysteries that have older main characters. And I adore snarky humor. Put the two together with a smart, well thought out plot and you have a five star book. Lottie got away with murder, well multiple murders, when she was younger. At age 75 she was in blissful “retirement”. Until a woman showed up uninvited at her door one night wanting to film a docuseries about her. She did not change her name and move just to have her history brought back up into the open. So… Downing does a great job of differentiating between murder then and now. Smart phones, for one. And hauling and cutting bodies at 75 is different from your 30s and 40s.
I am not a big fan of psychological thrillers, especially those about serial killers. And it takes a special kind of talent to create a basically evil character that I’m still rooting for. But Downing has done it. I wasn’t sure how I wanted this to end. Did I want her to pull it off? Did I feel she needed to be punished? I thought the ending was perfect. This was fun entertainment in a dark, twisted way. And you’ll learn plenty about the best way to clean up a murder scene.
My thanks to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing for an advance copy of this book.
The River Is Waiting: A Novel
by Wally Lamb
Heartbreakingly beautiful (5/1/2025)
The River is Waiting is a heartbreakingly beautiful book. It didn’t take long before my heart was in my throat. And for way too many scenes, it stayed in my throat. It’s not an easy book to read; it’s raw, bleak and dark and doesn’t provide any easy answers.
Corby Ledbetter is struggling with the loss of his job and being a stay at home parent to twin two year olds. I have to give Lamb credit. I found Corby initially difficult to like yet I was drawn into his plight. And as the story went on, I was totally engrossed in his trials.
The book focuses on a lot of big emotional issues - grief, addiction, forgiveness and moving on with life. It also makes you think about the prison system, casual cruelty, and justice. The character development is strong. I felt like Corby was a real person. Even the secondary characters, like Emily and Manny, were fully fleshed out. Lamb spent twenty years leading a creative writing workshop at a women's correctional institution so he has a real sense for prison life.
This would make a fabulous book club selection as it really makes you both feel and think. My thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book.
The Original Daughter: A Novel
by Jemimah Wei
Would work well for a book club (5/1/2025)
The Original Daughter is a debut novel concerning the creation and dissolution of a family in Singapore. Up until she was eight, Genevieve was an only child. But then, seven year old Arin arrives, a half-cousin to Gen, given up by her family in Malaysia. Slowly, Genevieve and Arin become tightly bound. But then, as young women, that bond breaks and they become estranged.
The story is beautifully written. While told solely from Genevieve’s PoV, both characters felt fully formed. Gen wasn’t an easy character to like. If she’d been real, I would have wanted to shake some sense into her. Yet, I felt her pain - the losses she suffered, the jealousy and finally the hurt from the betrayal. Even when I disliked what she did, I could understand why she did it.
The story speaks of familial duty, resentment, abandonment, lost dreams, independence and ambition. It was a book that really made me think. At the end, I felt bereft from the pain of someone holding on to bad choices for too long. It would make an excellent book club selection.
Wei also did a strong job of taking the reader to both Singapore and Christchurch.
My thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday Books for an advance copy of this book.
Power Reviewer
