Just Jennifer

The Innocent Sleep by Karen Perry (Henry Holt, February 2014)

Five years ago while he and his wife Robin were living in Tangiers, Harry left their three-year-old son Dillon asleep in bed alone for five minutes.  The unthinkable happened when an earthquake destroyed the building and presumably killing Dillon, though his body was never found.  Now Harry and Robin are living in Dublin, trying to rebuild their lives when Harry spots a boy whom he is certain is Dillon on the street being led by his hand by a strange woman.  Harry becomes obsessed with the idea that Dillon is still alive and tries to find the woman.  Robin is trying to move on with their lives and has just announced her pregnancy to Harry who says he is happy about it, though his actions say otherwise.  Has Harry really found Dillon? Or is it his grief and guilt that makes him think he has seen Dillon?  As Harry and Robin’s stories unfold, secrets they kept from each other emerge as the portrait of a marriage shifts from one of shared grief to one of lies and betrayals.  A suspenseful plot with several interesting twists, the ending may disappoint some readers.  Overall a successful collaboration by a husband wife team.

Just Jennifer

That Night by Chevy Stevens (Minotaur, June 2014)

A stand-alone by author Chevy Stevens that tells the story of Toni Murphy who has just finished serving time in prison for the murder of her sister, a murder she insists she is innocent of.  Toni's family has turned from her and as part of the condition of her release she is to have no contact with Ryan, the boyfriend who was also convicted in the murder.  As Toni tries to readjust to life outside of prison, Ryan continues to try and contact her as he tries to prove their innocence; the mean girls from high school are all grown up and aren't as mean as they seemed in high school, or are they? As Toni begins to learn things that may lead her to the truth about the night that changed everything she has to decide how much she is willing to risk in order to clear her name and wonders even then if she will be able to repair her relationship with her mother .  Tautly plotted with believable characters Stevens continues to be at the top of her game.

Just Jennifer

Precious Thing by Colette McBeth (Minotaur, March 2014)

Imagine going to cover a police press conference and finding the subject of the press conference, a missing woman, is your best friend from high school who you were to have had an evening out with two days earlier.  From the day shy, awkward Rachel walked in to school and took a seat next to Clara, the two have been inseparable best friends, the kind that is so intense that they were each other’s everything until something separated them for seven years.  Now Rachel is a confident television reporter and it is Clara's life that has not held together.  Shocked by her disappearance, Rachel begins to question their friendship and how well she knew Clara and what secrets Clara might have kept? As Rachel revisits their friendship as teenagers and as adults, a disturbing picture of their relationship is revealed, one that changes everything.  A tightly plotted narrative with an unreliable narrator makes this psychological thriller one not to miss.

Just Jennifer

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin (Algonquin, April 2014)

An enchanting story of the life of the New England Alice Island bookseller A.J. Fikry who, after the death of his young wife, becomes angry and reclusive, drinking himself into oblivion some evenings. The theft of the rarest book he owned brings police officer Lambiase into his life, the first of many people who will slowly change his life, giving him a chance to make a new start.  Publishing house representative Amelia makes it her quest to get A.J. to fall in love with a title on her company’s list, but succeeds in much more than that.  A gift left at the shop changes A.J. irrevocably, but also plays a role in changing the lives of those around him.  Beautifully told, the story has an allegorical feel as little by little, pieces of not only A.J.'s life, but those around him are slowly revealed, giving everyone in A.J.'s circle, a second chance at happiness, all the while reaffirming why we love to read and why we need each other.

Just Jennifer

A Circle of Wives by Alice LaPlante (Atlantic Monthly, March 2014)

Plastic surgeon Dr. John Taylor has built a practice, and his reputation, on helping disfigured children, eschewing traditional plastic surgery which would be more lucrative to his practice.  When he is found dead in his hotel room, Palo Alto detective Samantha Adams is assigned to the case, surprised as homicide is not her usual beat.  As she begins to investigate Dr. Taylor, she learns he was a bigamist, married to three separate women; she is shocked to learn that his status conscious first wife Deborah not only knew about the other two women, but orchestrated and scheduled Dr. Taylor’s life to accommodate his choices.  Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the four women, Deborah, Samantha, MJ, his mother-earth wife, and Helen, his pediatric oncologist wife, and together they not only form a picture of his life, but slowly reveal who might have wanted him dead.  With different voices, and different images of what their life was like, each woman tells her story, deals with the death of her husband and the betrayal she feels.  Samantha, in her own way, lets Taylor’s legacy seep into her helping her make some choices, and face some truths, in her own life that she may have been trying to avoid.  

Just Jennifer

Deep Winter by Samuel W. Gailey  (Blue Rider Press, February, 2014)

When Danny, a simple-minded resident of rural Wyalusing, Pennsylvania finds the body of Mindy, the one woman who has been his friend his entire life, he becomes the main suspect in her murder and sets off a manhunt that has irrevocable implications for the small town.  The town turning on the kindhearted Danny is reflected in a cold, harsh winter night.  An evil has been festering in the town for many years and will all come out on this one night.  It is hard to see the people of Wyalusing turn on Danny, and maybe even a little unbelievable, as they shrug their shoulders and say “it was bound to happen”.  More tragedy and death occurs as it becomes obvious there is only one way to stop what has held the town in its grips for so many years.  Effective plotting, the manhunt occurs over the course of one night, keeps the tension high and propels the narrative forward.  

Just Jennifer

Bone Dust White by Karin Salvalaggio (Minotaur, Mary 2014) 

One night just before her eighteenth birthday, Grace thinks she hears someone calling her name and looks out the back window of her house just as a woman is stabbed in the backyard.  Grace goes to the woman and realizes it is the mother Leanne who left her when she was a young child.  Detective Macy Greeley has been searching for Leanne for the past eleven years and wants to know what brought her back to Montana after all these years.   But Grace and Macy aren’t the only ones searching for answers to secrets Leanne held; more attacks on those closest to Grace, including a possible attempt on Grace while she is in the hospital, ratchet up the urgency to the investigation…as does the fact that Macy is seven months pregnant, unsure about how to deal with the father of her child and facing her boyfriend from what seems like another life.  As Grace and Macy each search for answers to their questions, a horrifying picture is brought in to focus.  The solution isn't entirely unexpected, but the setting and the characters are real.

Just Jennifer

The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh (Spiegel and Grau, March 2014)

The Dane family has been keeping secrets in the Ozark town of Henbane for years.  When an outsider steals the heart of one of the Dane brothers, the secrets threaten to unravel; what sacrifices will a mother make to save her daughter Lucy from the same fate? When sixteen-year-old Lucy's friend is found murdered after being missing for a year, Lucy begins to ask questions, questions that only lead to more questions, the answers to which may destroy Lucy's family and change everything she thought she knew.  Atmospheric and visceral, the story is vividly and effectively told from Lucy's point of view in the present day and her mother's when she arrived in Henbane two decades ago.  This first novel is written with the assurance of a more experienced writer and will draw the reader in and not let go until long after the last page has been turned.

Just Jennifer

Providence Rag by Bruce DeSilva (Tor, March 2014)

What would you do if you knew a man was being held in prison based on crimes allegedly committed while he was behind bars---crimes you know were trumped up to keep a vicious killer in prison.  Not even old enough to have a driver’s license, a teenager slaughtered five of his neighbors and was caught before he murdered more that would have made him a true serial killer.  Because of an antiquated Rhode Island law, this boy, who has grown into a man while in prison, must be released when he turns twenty-one, unless, as it happened, the prisoner commits other crimes while in jail.  Newspaper reporter Mulligan has been covering the story since the beginning, but now his co-worker, and the son of the owner of the paper, Mason, is uncomfortable with the framing of a man---even if the man will surely kill again once he gets out of jail.  More than a well-plotted, fast-paced---though very graphic---mystery, Providence Rag is the story of the collapse of a print newspaper and an ethical dilemma that reaches all the way to the governor.  Well-developed characters populate the book.  A slight slowing down of the pace near the middle makes the plot drag a little, but just as fast it picks up again and races toward an uneasy conclusion.

Just Jennifer

The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson (William Morrow, February 2014)

When George was a freshman in college, he had an intense affair with a classmate who killed herself over winter break.  Or did she?  George has spent the past twenty years thinking he has seen Liana Decter and when he finally does see her in a Boston bar she pulls him into a drama only George doesn’t realize he is only there to play a small part, to set things in motion and instead, he becomes so involved he will be lucky to extricate himself alive.  Liana can mesmerize and bewitch men, but there is one thing that must be kept in mind when dealing with her---Liana only looks out for Liana---and she is wanted for two murders.  Fast-paced and obsessive, Peter Swanson’s debut grabs you at once and doesn’t let go; even when you realize nothing is as it appears, it is still almost impossible to guess that Liana’s next move is.  Seductively addictive from the first page to the last.

Just Jennifer

The Taste of Apple Seeds by Katharina Hagena (William Morrow, February 2014)

Translated from German The Taste of Apple Seeds tells the story of Iris who has inherited her grandmother’s country house, but along with it, all her family’s  memories and secrets, some painful enough to destroy lives that have been rebuilt over the past decade.  Iris is unsure whether she should keep the house or sell it and decides to stay in it for a week to put things in order and make her decision.  Bertha’s cottage has always had an enchanted quality to it, even after the death of Iris’s cousin Rosemarie: red currents since always grow white, but make the sweetest tasting pink tinged jelly; apple blossoms bloom off-season when true lovers stand beneath a tree and sparks fly from Iris’s aunt whenever she makes human contact.  As Iris revisits her family and their memories, she must make a choice whether she wants to inherit her family’s memories and pains and be the keeper of them or take a chance on giving up her past---and possible future---and return to the life she has crafted for herself.  A fairy tale quality to the narrative will endear Iris to readers and sparks a magical atmosphere.

Just Jennifer

Ruby by Cynthia Bond (Hogarth, April 29, 2014)

Ruby is “the kind of pretty it hurts to look at” and Ephram has been in love with Ruby since they were children in East Texas.  Over thirty years later, Ruby has returned from New York City, even more damaged then when she left, the town shunning her, Ephram determined to save and redeem his Ruby.  With writing that is of another time, each character has a distinctive voice: Ruby is so haunting, Ephram’s sister Celia overbearing and authoritative, and Ephram, a dream-like quality, never forgetting Ruby in all his years.  The dusty East Texas setting from Celia’s spotless kitchen to the alley outside the grocery where men gather to trade gossip and bootleg whiskey adds to the overall atmosphere.  The structure of the narrative is very effective as the scenes seamlessly shift between the past and present, slowly revealing a full picture of Ruby and what she endured during her life.  Each detail from the old lady’s shack in the woods to when and how water is used to the black crows is significant and perfectly placed.  Beautiful and hauntingly horrifying as Epharam takes on an entire town to save the woman with whom he fell in love as a child and still loves as a man.

Just Jennifer

Ruin Falls by Jenny Milchman (Ballantine Books, April 22, 2014)

Imagine going on a long-planned vacation with your family only to wake up and find your children missing from the hotel room.  Now imagine it is determined that your husband took your children and the police are unable to do anything about it.  Liz and her husband Paul have a nice life in a small Adirondack town in New York State.  Liz has a small farm plot and sells her harvests and products made from them and Paul is an adored professor at a nearby agricultural college.  They have decided to take their two young children, Ally and Reid upstate to visit Paul’s parents at their cattle farm; Liz is a little surprised as they haven’t seen Matthew and Mary in a very long time and Paul is mostly estranged from them.  As Liz begins to look for her children she realizes that there is a lot about her husband she doesn't know and there is a secret from his past, one that caused the estrangement between Paul and his parents, one that is very disturbing, and one that might just be the key to where Paul has taken the children.  Strange encounters with strangers at Liz’s house and threats to stop looking for her children make her all the more determined to find her children and bring them home no matter the cost.  Tautly plotted with many twists and turns, Ruin Falls will keep you reading long into the night as Liz’s worst nightmares are slowly revealed.

Just Jennifer

The Wedding Bees by Sarah-Kate Lynch (William Morrow, February 2014)

Sugar Wallace has been on the lam from the last fifteen years with nothing but her bees and good Southern manners.  She is not on the run from the law, however, but worse, from her proper Southern mother who is mortified that Sugar left her fiancé at the altar just before saying “I do”.  Sugar has spent the past decade and a half going wherever the bees take her, making close friends, but never staying in one place for too long.  Her latest stop is Alphabet City in Manhattan where she turns her penthouse terrace into a rooftop paradise for her bees.  Sugar immediately realizes that her fellow apartment mates are even more standoff-ish than she expected them to be, but also realizes that each one is damaged in their own way and sets out to bring them out of their apartments and help them with her special brand of magic---honey and good manners.  Sugar can’t, however, seem to get past the things that hold her back, even when she is near handsome Scotsman Theo Fitzgerald who produces sparks just by looking at her and who, from the moment he met her, as avowed his love for her and his wish to spend the rest of his life with her.  Little by little, the bees, love and Theo work their magic on Sugar, help her to heal and begin to live her life with the zest and vigor she encourages in other.  Eccentric characters and sentient bees add a touch of magic to this story about being, letting be and letting go.

Just Jennifer

The Deepest Secret by Carla Buckley (Bantam, February 4, 2014)

What secrets do we keep from even those to whom we are closest, what secrets do we keep even from ourselves, and how do the lies we tell ourselves become our truths?  These are all topics that Buckley considers in her latest novel.  Eve Lattimore has devoted her life to caring for her fourteen-year-old son who has a condition that prevents him from having any exposure to UV rays which will most likely kill him.  Eve has created a safe haven for Tyler, trying to keep as normal a life for the rest of the family, but ultimately alienated sixteen-year-old Melissa and her husband who has taken a job away from the family in Washington, D.C.  One rainy night, on the way to the airport to her husband up, Eve takes her eyes off the road for one minute while texting and hits something.  She is sickened and terrified when she realizes it is her best friend Charlotte’s eleven-year-old daughter Amy and that Amy is dead.  Eve quickly creates a story that convinces herself that it is for Tyler’s sake that she doesn't report the accident, but things slowly unravel for her, and her family, as the truth is finally revealed.  Flawed characters, not beyond redemption, a complicated, moral story line and a police investigation elevate this family saga a notch.  The ending allows some of the characters to examine themselves a little more closely as some startling admissions are made. 

Just Jennifer

After I’m Gone by Laura Lippman (William Morrow, February 11, 2014)

In another stand-alone by the author of the Tess Monaghan (who makes a cameo at the end) mystery series, Laura Lippman explores not only what happens when a cold case file from over thirty-years ago is looked at with new eyes, she also depicts women in society and the family from the turn of 1960 until modern day.  Baltimore gambling boss Felix Brewer would rather leave his wife Bambi, who he adores, and his three daughters, ages three, fourteen and seventeen, rather than spend fifteen years in jail.  He also leaves his mistress, Julie Saxony, who his wife knows about, and who is pretty certain Felix will send for her after a time.  Ten years, almost to the day of Felix’s disappearance, Julie also disappeared.  Everyone assumes Felix finally sent for her, but in 2001, her body is discovered behind Bambi’s house and the police department opens a murder investigation which is never solved.  Ten years later, Sandy Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective, is consulting on the department’s cold cases and decides to take another look.  As he does, he realizes that there is definitely a connection between Felix and Julie’s murder and tracks down all the players, including Felix’s lawyer and Bambi’s confident, Bert Gelman, and the bail bondsman Tubby Schroeder who took a bath when Felix went on the lam.  Writing back and forth from the past to the present, Lippman tells the story of Felix and Bambi’s marriage, the story of Felix and Julie, Julie’s sister and the story of each of his daughters and how each is connected with Felix and with Julie and how in the end, we are ultimately responsible for our own actions and cannot try and take the blame, or hide, what someone else has done.  Lippman slowly teases the truth out as she untangles over fifty years of lies and deception.  Strong characterization, especially the women, add another layer to the already rich narrative which is so much more than a traditional mystery.

Just Jennifer

Teaching the Cat to Sit by Michelle Theall (Gallery Books, February 25, 2014)

This memoir is unsettling, riveting and very heartwarming and hopeful all at the same time.  Theall is very honest in her exploration of her relationship with her family, the one into which she was born and the one she created and how Catholicism affected many aspects of her life growing up, her relationship with her mother and her adulthood living life as a gay woman with a life partner and a son they want baptized.   Growing up in the conservative Bible Best of Texas was not easy for a tomboy; a troubled relationship with her mother who often blamed Michelle for her depression, pulling out her Catholicism and using guilt as tool, made life even more difficult for Michelle.  Finally admitting she was gay was a great relief to Michelle, and coming out to her parents seemed a next logical step as she was certain they already knew.  They didn’t and were not as accepting as Michelle had thought; neither was the Church in which she had grown up in and turned to in times of trouble (Michelle was diagnosed with MS in 2003).  The local parish at first refused to baptize Michelle and her partner’s adopted son (who was a student at the parish’s school) and then held a baptism at a time other than right after a mass when the rite is normally conducted, encouraging it to be a community event.  Shortly after, the pastor, using Catholic doctrine and the Archdiocesan rules, decides that children of gay parents are no longer welcomed in the school setting Michelle off on a writing campaign (culminating in this book) fighting for her rights as a parent and her son’s rights as an innocent, even as she jeopardizes her relationship with her own family.  

Just Jennifer

Perfect by Rachel Joyce (Random House, January 2014)

When eleven-year-old Byron’s best friend James tells him that two seconds are to be added to time in order to realign recorded time with the rotation of the earth, the already worried young boy becomes even more so with far-reaching consequences.  One morning Byron awakens and everything seems normal: his school uniform is laid out, he and his sister have their usual breakfast tussle and his mother Diana drives them to school.  This morning, the fog on the moor is extra dense and Byron’s mother takes a different route; a quick glance at his watch makes Byron certain that this is the moment the two seconds are being added and as he does, something happens that his mother and sister do not seem to notice but something that haunts Byron for weeks to come.  Not sure to whom to turn, he tells James what has happened as James is sure to concoct a plan.  As Byron confronts his mother about the occurrence, a chain of events is set off with irrevocable consequences.  Rachel Joyce’s characters are pitch-perfect and empathetic; Diana reminds us of something inside ourselves of which we’d rather not be reminded and we ache for Byron as he wants to protect his mother and do the right thing at the same time, not sure where the two meet and not having any idea what chain of events will be set off; but one thing is certain, once he starts off on the path, nothing can ever be same again.

Just Jennifer

The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon (Doubleday, January 28, 2014)

A fictionalized retelling of the true and still unsolved disappearance of New York City Justice Joseph Crater in 1930, Lawhon’s novel re-imagines the events that led up to the judge’s last moments, what might have happened and the three women most involved in Crater’s life were affected by the disappearance and what they each might have known.  Set amid the glamour and corruption of prohibition and Tammany Hall, Lawhon recreates the world of Broadway chorus girls, mobsters and underground speakeasies with authenticity.  Each woman is introduced and then slowly woven into the story that becomes Crater’s disappearance and presumed death, each with her own secret that will fiercely be protected as they each finding themselves doing things they could never imagine.  A true-life murder mystery with bigger than life, real or based on real characters, The Wife, the Maid and the Mistress convincingly explores what might have happened with surprises up until the very end.  

Just Jennifer

The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking by Olivia Laing (Picador, December 31, 2013)

U.K. writer and critic Olivia Laing came to America to follow the trails of six of the twentieth-centuries most notable authors---and drinkers.  Following the lives, literally, of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Raymond Carver, John Cheever and poet John Berryman, Laing explores not only how drinking affected their lives and writing, but how their work influenced their drinking.  Echo Spring is a nod to the liquor cabinet where Brick keeps his Echo Spring Bourbon in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but Laing doesn’t stop there as she weaves in and out of the writers’ lives, making connections between them that will be new to many readers.  The child of an alcoholic family (her mother’s lover was an alcoholic), Laing has a unique insider’s view of alcoholism and as she traces a path from New York City to New Orleans to Key West across the United States to the Pacific Northwest, she muses not only on the past lives of the writers but of her own family.  With her lyrical prose, Laing brings to life a side of these men no often seen as she weaves together a portrait of not only despair and loss, but one of hope and the possibility of recovery.  An evocative, personal book it is honest and well-researched at the same time, drawing the reader in with lasting effects.