The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica is about a judge's daughter who is kidnapped. The fellow who kidnaps her was supposed to drop her off with a criminal for whom the kidnapper does various jobs, but he thinks she might be in danger of being killed and decides to hide out with her in a remote cabin. The decision to go to the cabin is so spontaneous that he has no idea how they're going to survive, how long he'll keep her captive, or how to end the mess he's gotten himself into. Months pass and winter sets in. Will they both survive?

In a second timeline, the judge's daughter is no longer a captive but she has selective amnesia and is so traumatized that she hardly speaks or eats. What happened and is there a way to jog her memory?

I remember hearing a lot of positive buzz about The Good Girl when it came out. I wasn't as enthusiastic as most, when I closed it. I figured out literally all of the plot twists way early in the book. Whether that was just lucky guesswork or the author dropped too many hints, I can't say. But, in spite of that, I enjoyed The Good Girl and would probably read Mary Kubica again.

Recommended but not a favorite.


©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen

He tossed and turned in his bed. He'd hoped that now that he had commenced the maintenance and repair of Pratt Library, it might assuage his nighttime frets. He'd had such a good morning at the library, trapping the ceiling raccoons. Though there'd been some pushback in that situation, too. One little sharp-toed son of a bitch attached itself to the leg of Ronnie's pants, and he had to hobble-run to the front door and launch it with a catapulting kick out onto the front walk. 

He slammed the big oak library doors and leaned against them, panting.

"That's a wondrously resourceful method of pest control, dear," Olive called over from the circulation desk. 

~from p. 173 of Harry's Trees


As I write, it's Monday evening and I know I'm going to have trouble getting into the next book I read because the last, Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen, was so good that I already know it's going onto the favorites for 2019 pile; it got a solid 5 stars at Goodreads.

Harry's Trees starts with a memorial service. Harry's wife Beth is being memorialized at a Quaker gathering, where people sit quietly until one feels the urge to say something, sing, recite a poem, whatever they're compelled to do. A couple tell stories about Beth and then one plays a song on her flute. And, then Harry does something strange. We then go back in time to find out how Beth died, what happened in the moments before her death, and why Harry is tormenting himself with guilt.

In another part of Pennsylvania, Amanda has lost her husband Dean. The reader learns about the circumstances of Dean's death, as well. Amanda has a daughter named Oriana who believes that her father has taken on another form, with wings. Amanda has spent a year trying to nudge Oriana out of her fantasy world and into the reality that her father is dead and he's never coming back, without luck, when the local librarian in a library that's falling apart in a town without the funds to repair it hands Oriana a handmade book and advises her to check it out.

And, then their paths cross. Harry has quit his job to go to the forest. There, he is spotted hitting his head on a stone fence by Amanda, who is a nurse. Oriana sees more than Amanda does and because of what she's seen, she knows something about Harry and determines that he is somehow connected to her.

I'm being deliberately vague because Harry's Trees is so magical that I don't want to give anything away. The storyline absolutely did not go where I expected it to go, although there were some predictable threads. Harry ends up living in a treehouse on Amanda's property, built by her rugged deceased husband. Oriana inserts herself into Harry's life, reads him the handmade book, and comes up with a solution to assuage Harry's guilt and free him from the pain he's been holding onto. But, it's so unique that I don't want to tell you about it. Just read the book, okay?

Highly recommended - There are touches of magical realism in Harry's Trees but they're delicate touches, much like those in Sarah Addison Allen's books. There's a little tragedy, a little magic, sweet friendships, some pay-it-forward kindness, a couple of villains. Harry's Trees is about grief and healing, love and heartbreak, guilt and atonement, greed and generosity. It's about moving forward after the worst thing you can imagine happens and it's just beautiful. The scene I loved most is the final scene with the librarian, which brought me to tears but in a moving way, not a sad one.

I love, love, loved Harry and Amanda and Oriana. Especially Oriana. She's a delightful child — smart and cunning and a little wise, but not in a way that's far-fetched. Her belief in magic is handled beautifully. You see the connections that she does but you're aware, at the same time, that her viewpoint is both clever and full of the kind of childish wonder that most adults blow off. Harry understands her because he needs that kind of wonder in order to help him break free of the guilt that's weighing him down. Anyway, it's pretty much perfect. There were places I thought some of the prose could have been edited down a bit, but not enough to convince me to knock off even half a point.

I received a copy of Harry's Trees from MIRA (a Harlequin imprint) for review. Many thanks! I've recently read two MIRA books and I'm impressed with the quality. Back in the 90s, when I was involved in a romance writers' group, I recall reading a handful of MIRA titles, mostly fantasy/sci-fi, as I recall, each with a touch of romance. I love the direction they've taken this imprint.

There is a little extra material at the back of the copy I read (the cover image shown is the one I have). In it, the author talks about being told, early on, that his books were "very visual" and would make good movies, which led him into screenwriting. I just happened to have been thinking that it was easy to visualize this story and it would make a great movie, just before I read the author interview. Ha! Somebody turn Harry's Trees into a movie, please.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Rosie Colored Glasses by Brianna Wolfson

Rosie and Rex are opposites. Rosie is brimming with life, loves color and sparkle and disorder. Rex is organized and disciplined. When they meet, it's because Rosie has done something Rex would never do. And, yet, there's a spark between them when they meet again, and they begin to date. He doesn't approve of her marijuana use and is uncomfortable with the chaos that surrounds her. She thinks he's a little stiff. And, yet, somehow he is charmed with her and she finds comfort in his stability. They fall in love and marry.

Willow and Asher adore their mother. On days that they go to Rosie's house, they know they'll get to watch movies, eat sugary things, wear matching pajamas, and have fun. On the days they stay with their father, they have to follow detailed lists. They never get to cook or dance. Rex doesn't pay as much attention to them as Rosie does. Rex's house is just not fun and sometimes he becomes very angry when they don't follow the rules.

But, Rosie is becoming increasingly unstable and unpredictable. Sometimes she comes late to pick them up from school. Sometimes, Rex arrives instead. Willow is stressed. She's bullied at school and the sharp differences between her parents aren't helping. When Rosie spirals out of control, what will happen? Asher is adaptable. But, can Rex be the parent that Willow needs him to be? Or, has he been showing his love all along in ways that Willow hasn't noticed?

In alternating chapters, the reader experiences the unfolding romance and collapsing marriage of Rosie and Rex alongside Willow's story as she navigates divorce and bullying then observes her mother's downward spiral.

Highly recommended - A gut-wrenching read, at times. Rosie appears to be bipolar, although that's never stated. Rosie Colored Glasses is about mental illness, love, parenting, addiction, grief, romance, marriage, divorce, bullying, and being yourself. It's heartbreaking and uplifting and sad and beautiful. I imagine this book will stick with me hard for some time to come. The author says it's based on her own childhood and I actually wondered about that, as I was reading. It seemed awfully detailed for mere imagination. Not that authors can't be that creative but often when a book is that vivid there's at least a little of the author's story tucked in there. Be prepared; Rosie Colored Glasses is an emotional read, but thought-provoking and meaningful on so many fronts.

I received an ARC of Rosie Colored Glasses from Harlequin in exchange for my unbiased review. My thanks to Harlequin/MIRA!


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Mini Reviews - The Orphan's Tale by Pam Jenoff, Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara, Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump

Since I have so many reviews remaining from 2016 and another 2 to hit in 2017, I'm going to go ahead and revert to the mini review format, for now. If there are any books that I believe require more depth in reviewing, I'll save them for separate posts. I'll post my December reads, later today.

The Orphan's Tale is my first read by Pam Jenoff, in spite of the fact that she writes about WWII. I don't know what took me so long to get to her books. The story is about two women. Noa was kicked out by her family after falling pregnant at 16, the father of her child a Nazi soldier. Separated from her own child, she has saved a baby found in a freezing train carriage. Astrid was forced to divorce her Nazi husband and leave her home because of her Jewish heritage.

Astrid grew up in a German circus and her family has disappeared. When a neighboring circus takes her in she is grateful but haunted by the loss of her family and perpetually in danger. After Noa shows up with the baby and is also given refuge, Astrid reluctantly teaches her to work on the flying trapeze. When they travel across Germany and Noa falls for the son of a mayor who works closely with the Nazis while Astrid's boyfriend refuses to stop breaking the rules, the dangers sharpen. Will Noa and Astrid be able to keep each other and the baby safe?

There was a lot that I loved about The Orphan's Tale. I liked the fact that I learned about a new facet of life during WWII. I liked the fact that it focused on specific issues that were problematic for women. And, I thought the ending was both heartbreaking and beautiful. There were a couple problems I had with the book, though. The main one was stylistic. The author used the passive voice and it took me ages just to learn to stop mentally rewriting sentences. So many had dones and had beens. The Orphan's Tale needed a dedicated editor to shift its prose away from the passive voice. The other problem was minor: I really don't like circus settings. I thought I would be okay with a circus setting and I did enjoy learning about what it was like within that kind of setting during WWII, but it still was not a setting I enjoyed and I occasionally found myself bored with the details of training someone to be an aerialist.

Recommended but not a favorite - I'm glad I read The Orphan's Tale and I will happily read more by Pam Jenoff but there were some minor frustrations. Definitely a unique setting for WWII and solid storytelling. Crucially, the ending felt perfect in a way few endings do.

Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara - My classic choice for December, I knew Appointment in Samarra was not going to be a happy tale. I'd read about it a bit and the fable about death finding a merchant in Samarra makes it clear that the ending will not be a pleasant one. But, the writing is superb and I was quickly swept into the story.

Julian English finds one of the members of his club particularly annoying and thoughtlessly tosses his drink in the man's face. The next day, his wife Caroline talks Julian into going to apologize to Harry Reilly, the victim, but Harry is unwilling to see him. It then begins to become clear just how much damage Julian has done to his standing. Slowly, Julian begins to unravel, in the process throwing away everything he's worked for and ruining his closest relationships. What will happen to Julian and Caroline?

Well, the fable makes it pretty obvious but it's still just a bit shocking, in the end.

Highly recommended - Sad as it is, Appointment in Samarra is impressively written and when I look back at 2016's classic choices, I have a feeling it will be one of my favorites.

I ordered a copy of Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump after watching the movie Hunt for the Wilderpeople and finding out that it was based on a book. I love watching a movie and comparing it to the book (better that way than reading the book first and being disappointed, actually) and they were definitely poles apart, although both are set in New Zealand - so, at least the book didn't suffer the fate of being Americanized.

Ricky Baker has been taken in by his Aunt Bella and Uncle Hec. At 12 years old, he's overweight and has spent much of his life being shuffled about. Aunt Bella is warm and loving, a great cook, and happy to step in as a surrogate mom. Uncle Hec is a curmudgeon and former inmate. When Aunt Bella dies suddenly, Hec is heartbroken and decides to head into the bush. But, Ricky will be sent back into foster care if Uncle Hec doesn't take him along. Reluctantly, Uncle Hec agrees to let Ricky come along.  They head into the bush to hide out till Ricky turns 16, when he'll be free of the social system.

That's the book version and they do, in fact, succeed in hiding out for about 2 years, sometimes while being pursued by authorities. Ricky and Uncle Hec make a single friend while on their adventures and Ricky becomes an expert hunter. Because the book is a survival story in which they hide out for literally years, it's quite different from the lighthearted comedy film. But, both are terrific in their own ways. The book is wonderful for being a survival story that ends mysteriously, the movie for its sense of humor. Both describe a building relationship with heart and they both have meaningful, yet extremely different, endings.

Highly recommended - I ordered my copy of Wild Pork and Watercress from Book Depository and it was shipped from Australia. Then, it became available on Amazon. Oh, well. It was worth the wait. I enjoy survival stories and it was fun mentally comparing the book with the movie, as I read. Wild Pork and Watercress has the feel of a YA because Ricky tells the story, although I'm not sure how it would be shelved in New Zealand.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

A few minis - The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, The Returned by Jason Mott, Redshirts by John Scalzi

A few minis, today, to help me catch up on recent reads (so many!) that have tossed me into backlog hell.  
The Rosie Project is a book I read in electronic form because I saw  so many effusive tweets and reviews that when it became available for $1.99 I figured fine, I can do without the paper for the sake of reading it sooner.  I really do hate e-books.

Don Tillman is a professor of genetics with Asperger's, brilliant in his field but socially inept. When he decides it's time to find a wife, he goes about the process in the same meticulous way he does everything else.  Don finds, however, that even the women who pass his stringent written test don't meet his criteria for one reason or another but Rosie, a completely unacceptable woman sent by his best friend, attracts him in spite of her unsuitability. 

When Don finds out Rosie wants to know who her father is, he uses his research techniques and knowledge to help Rosie narrow down the candidates, mostly as an unconscious excuse to spend more time with her. But, the more time he spends with Rosie, the more he realizes that it is he who must adapt to Rosie's needs, rather than the other way around.

Don is very much like Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory. His inability to understand human interaction and his need for strict order make for some hilarious situations. I absolutely loved this wacky  romance and highly recommend The Rosie Project to anyone looking for an upbeat, smart, funny read. Highly recommended.

The Returned by Jason Mott is a book I'm pretty sure I read about in Entertainment Weekly. When dead people inexplicably begin turning up all over the world, they are at first returned to their homes if there are survivors willing to take them in. But, as the number of Returned grows, people begin to panic.  Are they really the people that died or something else entirely? Why are they coming back to life, if they're real?  Should they be allowed to continue living when the sheer number of Returned threatens to decimate the food supply and overwhelm the planet's resources?  The living people who have not died are referred to as the True Living.

It took me a while before I realized that The Returned was not a science fiction novel that was going to explain away the return of the dead but a "What if?" that asks what would happen if the people we lost were able to come back, for a time.  That changed the way I viewed the novel but since it was based on a dream the author had about his mother after her death and I had that same kind of dream not once but several times after my father died, I found the book gripping and then touching.  It makes you think long and hard about what might happen if you really could speak to your loved ones and interact with them, again, if only for a few months or a year.  

I would have preferred that The Returned was sci-fi because it was the curiosity about what was causing the Returned that made it such a page-turner, at first, and yet I really did appreciate the book for what it was, once I figured out where the author was taking the story. The Returned is in many ways reminiscent of "Miracle Day", the fourth season of Torchwood, although in "Miracle Day" people cease dying rather than returning from the dead.  Of course, Torchwood is sci-fi and an explanation (although not an entirely logical one) is eventually given at the end of the "Miracle Day" series but there were similarities in the way people reacted -- with fear more than hope, separating the Returned from the True Living, considering the eradication of those whom many think should return to being dead. It's fascinating to theorize about how people might really react.

Recommended. Not at all what I expected.  Still, I enjoyed the book even after realizing it was something entirely different from what I thought it was going to be.

I think I already mentioned the fact that I have a library due-date to thank for the nudge to pick up Redshirts by John Scalzi.  

Redshirts is a story that begins on with a prologue in which several crew members on the space ship Intrepid are killed by Borgovian Land Worms on an away mission. In the first chapter, an entirely different group of new crew members meet up as they wait to board the Intrepid. It doesn't take long into their service on-board the Intrepid before Ensign Andy Dahl realizes something strange is going on. When Chief Science Officer Q'eeng shows up seeking away team crewmen, his coworkers disappear for coffee or to do inventory. Dahl's not stupid; he can see that they're ducking out.  But, why?  

Then, Dahl begins to notice certain trends regarding the deaths of underlings and he's given a warning by an elusive crewman who promptly disappears.  Why are so many new crew members dying during missions?  Who is the hairy man who gave Dahl a warning and why is he so difficult to locate?  Can Dahl survive as a new crew member who can't always duck his duty on away teams?  

Eventually, Dahl figures out what's going on and I'm not sure whether or not it's a spoiler but I'm not going to share his conclusions or what happens, just in case doing so might ruin the reading for someone. I like going into a book as clueless as possible, myself.  Suffice it to say, there is a very crazy reason for the deaths of the eponymous Redshirts (whom any Star Trek fan will have noted as the most likely crew members to die on an away team).  

John Scalzi never fails to entertain and Redshirts is a delight.  Subtitled "A Novel with Three Codas", I think the storyline could have stopped right before the codas and I would have been perfectly satisfied.  I didn't like the first coda at all; it was a jarring switch from the main storyline to the viewpoint of . . . oh, maybe that's a spoiler, but anyway . . . while I think the codas could have been dropped entirely, in the end I liked where Scalzi took the story.  

Highly recommended, especially to Star Trek and sci-fi fans.  There were quite a few grammatical errors in Redshirts, which surprised me because I used to read Scalzi's blog, Whatever, and he's such a sharp writer that I hesitate to blame the errors (mixed tenses in particular) on the author. Eh, whatever. It's a crazy-fun ride.  

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.