In the follow up to the debut Bull Mountain, Sheriff Clayton Burroughs is struggling with the
aftermath of not only taking down his brothers’ illegal mountain enterprises,
but killing them as well. As Burroughs
deals with the guilt o this, he is also trying to be a good husband and a new
father at almost forty years old. Wanting
nothing to do with the empire his brother built, he finds himself drawn back in
as another family wants to take over the operations and use Bull Mountain as a
safe and protected thoroughfare for their drug trade. Dangerous, violent, and heart-breaking all at
once, readers may suspect what is coming, but the final sentence of the book
offers big impact, shifting the kaleidoscope, making all the difference
They All Fall Down by Rachel Howzell Hall
This attempted homage to Agatha’s Christie’s And Then There Were None falls a little
short, but provides some frightening moments, and enough tension for a quick light
read. Miriam Macy has fallen far: her
husband has left her and is remarried to their daughter’s dance teacher; she
has lost her job, and has been involved in some incidents that cause the police
to call her on a regular basis. Miriam
is not the least bit surprised when the forty-five year old receives an e-mail
to participate in a reality television show: she and six other people, a
promiscuous widow, an ex-policeman, an obnoxious attorney, a chef with a drug
problem, a financial advisor, and a nurse with no bedside manner, receive
invitations to fly to Mexico, from where they will be transported to a remote
island to vie for a grand prize. Miriam
is glad to be away from her daily woes, her arguments with her husband and his
new wife, and the text her seventeen-year-old daughter sent her: I hate
you. Once on the island, though, there
seems to be no reality show, the only thing the group has in common is they’ve all
used attorney Phillip Omeke. As each of
her fellow “contestants” begin to die, Miriam stops thinking about herself,
winning the prize, and survival. A
backstory that is slowly revealed provides some context and a bit of interest
to this otherwise lackluster thriller, but doesn’t make Miriam any more likable
as a character.
Cape May by Chip Cheek
In September 1957, newlyweds Henry and Effie come to Cape
May from Georgia for their honeymoon.
Cape May is not how Effie remembers it from her summers as a child and
the pair plan to leave early until they meet Clara and her friends. This sophisticated, sensual group of people
unleashes feelings in both Effie and Henry that they never could have
imagined. What happens in during the
following week changes Effie, Henry, and the course of their marriage forever, in
this novel that explores what love is: what it means to be loved, to love, as
well as faithfulness and fidelity, and innocence lost. Smart and sexy, with sophisticated,
eloquent prose; plenty for book groups to discuss.
Fifty Things That Aren’t My Fault by Cathy Guisewite
For thirty-four years, the award winning comic strip “Cathy”
entertained readers with the ups and downs, perils, joys and heartbreaks of
single womanhood. In this collection of
essays of varying lengths, Guisewite turns her pen to words and to her life as
she talks about the decision to adopt her daughter as a single mother, her
brief marriage, and what it’s like to age somewhat less than gracefully, facing
indignities such as your feet growing a full size seemingly overnight, facing a
closet full of clothes in which nothing fits, and trying on clothes in a
dressing room, a tiny, young, attractive woman standing watch. She also addresses the struggles of being
part of the sandwich generation as she tries to help her aging parents who don’t want nor think they need her help. In the vein of Nora Ephron or Erma Bombeck,
but with a voice all her own, this collection will become beloved to longtime
fans of “Cathy”.
The Editor by Steven Rowley
When James Smale’s first novel is purchased by Doubleday, he
is over the moon; when the young gay fifty thingswriter realizes his editor is
to be none other than Jackie O. he cannot contain himself. Growing up, James’s mother adored the
Kennedy’s, though James had a difficult relationship with both his
parents. This becomes apparently obvious
to Mrs. Onassis as she reads James’s novel and all but sends him home to
reconcile with his mother and, with a little luck, find a new ending to his
novel. Once home, James uncovers family
secrets that will not only rewrite the ending to his novel, but to his entire
life. Rowley mines the depths of family
relationships, especially mothers and sons, and uses Jackie O. as a touchstone
for James as he works his way through his new reality. A fun portrayal of the former first lady
turned editor caps off what could be a maudlin story and keeps it from becoming
bogged down in family drama.
Under the Table by Stephanie Evanovich
Zoey Sullivan has left Ohio and her unhappy marriage to
start over in Manhattan living with her little sister while she gets her
catering business started. A job
catering a dinner party for wealthy computer nerd from St. Croix, Tristan
Malloy will help her bottom line and open up new opportunities, Zoe hopes. What she doesn’t expect is to fall into such
an easy friendship with Tristan who is good looking, but dorky and could use
some help with his social graces as well.
Zoey offers to give him a makeover, not realizing that as he is turning
into the new man about town, she is falling hard for him. This light, romantic, reverse Pygmalion story is perfect fare for the
start of spring.
The Better Sister by Alafair Burke
Chloe Taylor seems to have it all: a handsome husband who is
a partner in a prestigious Manhattan law firm, a step-son who seems to have it
together, and a career at a print magazine that most women would kill for in
the current digital age. Chloe has an interesting
backstory, however: she is the younger sister of her husband Adam’s ex-wife
Nicky, who is the mother of Chloe’s step-son Ethan. Chloe and Nicky have been estranged for over
fourteen years, but the murder of Adam at the couple’s East Hampton beach
brings Nicky, who is still Ethan’s legal parent, to Manhattan and back in the
forefront of Chloe’s life. Nicky has
gotten her life together in the past decade, but is still a bit of a flake, in
Chloe’s opinion, but when Ethan is arrested for the murder of his father, Nicky
springs into action as only a mother can, and has a legal right to do so, in
many cases. With their love and concern
for Ethan as their common ground, the two sisters find their way back to each
other, but as they do, secrets hidden for many years begin to emerge, shifting
the kaleidoscope, revealing an entirely different picture. Well written, though with only one outcome,
fans Lisa Scottoline, and of family dramas and legal battles will enjoy this
standalone novel.
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
Miracle Creek, Virginia has almost nothing going for
it. Korean immigrants Pak and Young Yoo
have immigrated there from Seoul with their daughter Mary and operated a
hyperbaric oxygen chamber that offers therapeutic relief from conditions
ranging from infertility to autism. A
fire in one of the oxygen tanks causes a fatal explosion killing on of the
patient’s mothers and one of the young boys, Henry, who was being treated for
autism. One year later, Henry’s mother
is on trial for the fire and seems resigned to the fact that she will be
convicted, and at times reveals herself to be relieved that her son has died.
As the trial unfolds, the patients who were present that evening and the Yoos
begin to tell their stories to each other and to the court creating a much
different picture of what occurred that evening. Kim’s debut is rich in characterization and
complex plot, but she deftly weaves all loose ends together, no matter how
far-fetched or coincidental incidents seem at the time, into such a complex
picture, expressing the malleability of the truth, what it means to be a
parent, especially a mother, and what it means to be a stranger in a strange
land, even when it is the land of your birth.
The Light Years by Chris Rush
Growing up in a privileged Catholic family in New Jersey
with an alcoholic father and a mother who is rather vague where her seven
children were concerned, artist, designer Chris was in the middle and spent
much of his pre-teen years trying to figure out where he fit in. He knew he was not like his other brothers,
his sixteen-year-old sister Donna became a kindred spirit, introducing him to a
world of drugs and the freer, alternative lifestyle of the late sixties. Chris
is sent to an all-boys Catholic boarding school after he hears his father say
he might be “queer” and is bullied, and then expelled. His next “art” boarding school suits him
better, but again, it is not for him. He
travels across the United States to be with Donna in Tucson, but ends up having
to hitchhike and almost ends up dead.
Chris focuses on his pre-teen and teenage years in this honest, raw
memoir, which is sometimes very uncomfortable as he bounces from school to
school, from family to sister, in search of his true self, and a place to call
home and in which he can be himself and comfortable as himself.
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