I Know You Know by Gilly Macmillan

Cody Swift was 11 years old when his childhood best friends were murdered. A mentally challenged young man was sent to prison and has since killed himself. Now, Cody has decided to investigate the murders. Was the right man found guilty? Or, were there details that were overlooked? Cody and a friend have created a podcast to describe their findings as they return to Bristol and travel to visit people who were involved in the 20-year-old investigation. 

Detective John Fletcher held one of the boys in his arms as he died. He was happy to quickly close the investigation and put someone behind bars. But, now that Cody Swift's podcast is drawing attention and a new body has been discovered in the same area, a new investigation has been opened and he can't help but wonder if there's a connection between the murder of the boys and the newly-discovered, long-dead man. But, there's more to John Fletcher than meets the eye. What happened during the investigation? Was the lead investigator set up? If so, who was involved and why?

Jess lost her son Charlie 20 years ago and it's been a difficult journey, since. Since Charlie's death, she's felt profoundly guilty, but not for reasons you'd expect. On the night of their disappearance, Jess was gone for many hours. She was never a suspect but those hours have not been explained. With Cody digging into the murders, Jess is nervous. She doesn't want her carefully crafted new life upset and the secret she's kept from her daughter exposed. She knows it will upset her husband but, in need of help, she contacts a crafty and dangerous man, the only man who can help her because he knows her better than anyone. Will the truth of what happened that night be revealed?

OK, where to start? I've read 2 out of 3 of Gilly Macmillan's previous books and I liked them. What She Knew was the first, I think, and it shared a detective with Odd Child Out. I'm not sure of the order but I think Odd Child Out was the more recent one. I liked where the author took that detective and thought the second book I read was even better than the first, which was good but uncomfortable. So, I was hoping this next entry, I Know You Know, would continue on with the same detective. It did not. He's not in the picture at all. There's a whole new cast of characters. It took me a little time to adjust to that, but I found the story intriguing and Gilly Macmillan's writing flows nicely, so her books are always quick reads. I enjoyed that about I Know You Know.

I had some problems with this particular title, though. First of all, Fletcher is a confusing character. You know that he held this child while he was dying and later on, at least one police officer says watching someone die and not being able to save them impacts you for life. So, what's revealed about his character is baffling and there were actually some things that made me think, "I don't buy that." How could he do this if he felt that? That was the sensation I was left with. Obviously, what he did that I found suspect is spoiler material, so I have to keep it vague. However, this question stuck with me throughout the reading. If Gilly Macmillan's writing was a little rougher, I might have given up the book because of this particular problem. But, her writing seriously flows and she's good at pulling you in, so I just kept thinking, "Wait a minute," about every 50 pages or so. Weird, but true. Maybe others can shrug it off completely.

There's also the question of the new body. Whether or not it's connected to the bodies of the boys, why wasn't it found 20 years ago? It's found in the same location, just buried a bit deeper. That eventually would nag at me, although it takes some time before that particular murder victim is identified and his story revealed.

Recommended with hesitation - If a few plot holes don't bother you and you're a mystery fan, you might enjoy I Know You Know. But, for me personally, it was the worst of the Gilly Macmillan books. It was her writing and some well set-up questions that kept me going. I wanted to know how the story ended. I was confused about certain elements, but I couldn't put the book down. The ending, however, was terrible and ruined the read entirely for me. As I'm reading, I'm often mentally scoring a book. It was a 5 for a while because it sucked me in, then a 4 when I started to question certain elements, then it bounced between the two for a while. The ending knocked it down to a 3 and if I'd known it would end that way, I'd have ditched it in spite of how the pages flew.

I Know You Know just did not work for me. Having said that, I think readers who are not quite as picky as I am will likely enjoy it. My general feeling as I put it down: kind of pissed off. Worth mentioning: there are a lot of not-nice characters and that actually doesn't bother me but I'd recommend against reading it if you need someone to relate to. I think the ending was meant to be triumphant for one of the characters, but instead it just made me dislike that character even more. So, the ending just flat did not work. However, I've enjoyed Macmillan's writing style every time I've read it, flaws and all. I will not continue reading her work if she lets me down this thoroughly, in the future, but I'll give her another chance.


©2018 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.

The Summer of Me by Angela Benson

Destiny is a single mother with twins. Her ex, Kenneth, is a good father to the children but he has hinted at trying to get custody. His financial situation is much better than Destiny's and he lives in a better school district in greater Atlanta. To prevent losing custody of the children and keep from having to drive them all the way across town to attend school in Kenneth's district, Destiny has decided she must save up the money to move to his area. She's found an affordable house and located a job. But, the job has fallen through at the last minute and she needs ideas.

Destiny's friend Bertice has been known to get involved in shady opportunities but when Kenneth takes the children for the summer and unexpectedly cuts Destiny's child support payments in half, Destiny is desperate. Now, she won't be able to pay her bills, much less buy a house. Ignoring the feeling that something isn't quite right, she signs up with the company Bertice has been working for, writing product reviews.

Meanwhile, Destiny's mother has been pushing her to go back to school and Destiny finally gives in, while her other best friend has introduced Destiny to a charming widower and associate pastor who needs help with a program distributing his wife's insurance money to those in need. Destiny signs on to help. The money isn't great, but she's definitely interested in Daniel.

Between her job at a cosmetics counter, styling hair in her basement, helping Daniel plan a grant program and financial planning courses, and the new job writing consumer reviews, along with night school, you'd think Destiny wouldn't have time to eat or sleep. But, somehow she manages not only to date the preacher but balance everything else and go for a weekend trip to California to see the kids. She also meets a woman who takes an unusual interest in her and offers to help her get her license as a hair stylist.

So much happening! I could maybe buy into about half of what's going on in The Summer of Me all at once, but there were too many implausibles and here is where the spoilers come in. Highlight to view the spoilers, all of which I consider some of the "implausibles":

Destiny is involved in money laundering without realizing it, her mother has a secret that doesn't seem plausible (I won't go into why, but think "legal aspect"), and when Destiny's money laundering job leads to disaster, everyone involved gets off without consequences.

Another implausible, less spoilery, is the fact that Destiny's able to take a few extra days off from work and school when things go wrong while she's in California. And, you have to wonder, "How does a woman struggling to make enough money to buy a house find the funds to buy a round-trip airline ticket?" I also had difficulty with the fact that Destiny kept referring to the house she planned to buy as if it were just sitting there waiting for her to buy it -- no other buyers, no hounding from the real estate agent, no figuring out how to come up with a down payment and qualify for a loan, etc.

Add to all that the fact that the dialogue is stilted and I can't believe I finished The Summer of Me at all. But, I did and it served as the mental break I needed after Sylvia Plath's depressing novel. I also really love the fact that The Summer of Me is, at its heart, the story of a single mother doing her best to improve herself as a person and the lives of her children, as well as a clean romance. In those regards, The Summer of Me served its purpose. There is an epilogue and things work out in the end -- too easily, yes, and very implausibly. But, there's plenty of food for thought about how difficult it must be to be a single mother, particularly if you don't have a decent relationship with the father of your children or a nice support network of friends and relatives. Destiny had all that but was still struggling.

Recommended to romance fans, but with hesitation - I gave The Summer of Me an average rating because there were too many questionable threads and the dialogue didn't work for me, but it's a light, breezy read that I think romance fans (at least those who don't mind so much going on) will likely tolerate better than I did. Having said that -- and I do think my review sounds highly critical -- I have to add that I appreciate the book for helping me rise from post-Plath gloom.

I'm not sure if the image above is the final cover image, but I hope so. I have an ARC from HarperCollins and the cover of the ARC appeared white-washed, while this one clearly shows the fact that the protagonist is African-American. I requested the book specifically because I want to read more books by and about people of color and I'm concerned when I see a cover that's deliberately white-washed, although a part of me understands the reasoning -- that some people simply will not buy a book with a person of color on the cover. It's a problem worth talking about.

©2016 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.