Just what it says: a 300-page summary of the "significant bits" of the history of the United States. It's a nice basic history in a chatty style that imparts information for those who don't want to do a deeper dive. The only thing that bugged me was that this is the second book of US history that credits the beginning of the textile industry to Francis Lowell, who eventually did found the mill towns in Lowell, Massachusetts. It states that Lowell, a Boston merchant, came from England with plans in his head for the first looms. Rank heresy, says this Rhode Islander! Samuel Slater was the man who first came to the United States (Pawtucket, Rhode Island) with "plans in his head" for spinning machines and looms, way before Lowell.
Hayden Norcross, a prominent Wall Street investment banker, is murdered in his office, and former gangster Jack Robinson soon arrives at the detective agency of Frank Malloy, asking him to investigate the death. Jack is married to Jocelyn, a wealthy young woman who was raped by Norcross and then spurned, and they are now awaiting the birth of the child fathered by her rapist. Robinson believes someone will try to pin the murder on him.
Malloy and his wife Sarah Brandt, who still works as a midwife, are soon embroiled in Norcross' sordid lifestyle, which includes the rape of other women. Helped by Sarah's society parents, who can go places Malloy cannot, they try to untangle the deceit and violence of Norcross' life. There's also an amusing subplot about Frank's partner Gino, still recovering from injuries incurred in the previous mystery, planning to take Maeve, Sarah's part-time nursemaid and Malloy's part-time secretary, to his parents' house for dinner. Usually unflappable Maeve is unsure about what will happen with Gino's volatile family, especially his mother.
A book of short anecdotes from American history, from Presidential trivia to little-known facts about battles, colonial schooling, Western foibles, and others. A perfect "bathroom book" for history lovers.
Considering this is a children's/young adult book, this is a pretty grim but realistic portrayal of a family of "Okies" during the Dust Bowl era. The Jackson family's farm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, is slowly dying from drought and low prices. Finally C.J.'s dad sells out and Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, C.J., and his four brothers and sisters set out in Jackson's old car across the western desert to get to California where they hear there are jobs for farm workers.
The road is hard, they are treated with bigotry, and when they get to California, campsites are dirty and smelly. Think of this as a kid's version of The Grapes of Wrath, although things end up okay for the family. If you want an eye-opening view of life for Dust Bowl farmers, this is a good start.
I particularly waited to read this for the semiquincentennial, since it's about the celebrations of 1826, the semicentennial. I guess I was expecting something different, like a portrait of how people lived. There are aspects of this in this volume, which opens when the Marquis Lafayette returns to the United States for a tour of the country in his old age, having survived the more brutal French Revolution. There are also profiles of John Quincy Adams, the last of the old guard, and of Andrew Jackson, the candidate of the common man, and the last two chapters do focus on how the semicentennial was celebrated and also how the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both on July 4, 1826, were addressed.
The other chapters are a little odd: one about a man named William Wirt, who wrote a popular biography of Patrick Henry and another about Eliza Foster, a writer (and daughter of a writer) who produced two seminal books of what we would now call historical fiction, Saratoga and Yorktown. Another covers the migration to the Ohio country. I gleaned some new information from this history, but it was a bit of a slog.
Sophie Drear and Harriett Fisher were best friends on a mission when they first saw Lilymoor House, a beautiful old home surrounded by marvelous gardens, and fell in love with the place. They promised to come back together another time. Now Sophie is back, at least, helping to revitalize the property after the widow of the original owner grows too old to keep it up. Anchored in her suddenly rocky life by working in gardens, Sophie is enjoying her work, her co-workers who are equally invested in reviving the beautiful grounds, and the unconventional owner, Eula. Then one day she finds a door she's never seen before in one of the walls, and inside is a frustrated man named Rus who can't go beyond the gate.
This is a magical book about friendship, love, clinging to old memories while not going ahead in life, being joyful in old age, fraternal relationships, old wounds, and new love. A lovely riff on Burnett's The Secret Garden. I was in tears by the end.
Thirteen-year-old Piper Davis lives in Seattle with her widowed father, a minister; her older sister Margie; and her older brother Hank. Pastor Davis is the head of a Baptist church where most of the parish is Japanese; the Davises love their Japanese neighbors, and the congregation has perfect trust in Pastor Davis. So it is a blow when, after Hank joins the Navy and is shipped out to the Hawaiian Islands, Pearl Harbor is attacked, and suddenly the family is supposed to consider their friends their enemies. Shocked when all their neighbors, many of them American-born, are shipped off to internment camps, but the biggest shock is Piper's when Reverend Davis moves to one of the camps to care for his flock and brings her with him. Although she loved her friends, Piper is furious when taken away from her school and non-Japanese friends—until she sees what they are up against in the dirty, disorganized camp.
Larson based Pastor Davis on the real-life Reverend Emery Andrews, who did indeed go to serve his Japanese flock in an internment camp. An eye-opener if you've only read one or two lines about internment camps in history class.
What a grand book! Stark's book is part travelogue to four different places: northern Maine, western Pennsylvania, southeast Oregon, and the desert of New Mexico. Using satellite photos, he finds the four darkest spots on a US map, and then explores the areas—in Maine and New Mexico with his wife and kids, and alone in the other places—and the history of the empty places, which turn out not to be so empty at all; in fact, they're all teeming with life, both human and animal, and history. What happened to the French in Canada...in the first frontier in Pennsylvania...on the landscapes of the west that inspired John Muir...and in the Native American settlements of the southwest?
The parts with his family are especially enjoyable, but the entire book is a look at history you never hear about, especially during the French and Indian War. I learned a lot more about the French settlers from this book than in any other. Warning: there is one specific paragraph about a woman being tortured that might disturb a younger reader.
I usually enjoy Rinaldi books (except for her book about Native Residential Schools), and this one was no exception. Cecilia "CeCe" McGill's father died for his abolitionist beliefs, and teen CeCe didn't particularly care about his efforts at all. She finds she may have to care: her new guardian is her Uncle Alex, a doctor and ornithologist, and he's about to take her on a tour of Southern plantations in search of the rare scarlet ibis—the bird enslaved people call "the ever-after bird," because if they see it, they believe they will be set free. In reality, Uncle Alex is also an abolitionist who gives enslaved people advice to get to safety. And CeCe and Uncle Alex's Black assistant Earline are going to take part in Uncle Alex's dangerous game by posing as Alex's selfish ward and her servant to throw the plantation owners off his trail. CeCe is shocked by how easy it is for her to get into the role of being a slave-owner—and too soon she discovers the terrible treatment of the enslaved on the plantations they visit.
Rinaldi based the story on a real-life ornithologist who distributed maps and escape information in the ante-bellum South, and admits that she "whitewashed" the already violent portrayal of plantation slaves' lives so it was fit for a young adult book. What she does portray is pretty graphic as it is: this is not a book for young children.
30 June 2026
Books Completed in June 2026
31 January 2026
Books Completed in January 2025
One Christmas in Washington, David Bercuson and Holger Herwig The Joys of Christmas 2013 -Guideposts Ideals Christmas 2024 Ideals Christmas 2025 The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah, Jean Meltzer Old Christmas, Washington Irving The Little Book of the Nativity, Dominique Foufelle Re-read: A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens Goodness and Light and Watch for the Light Quincy's Curse, Keith RobinsonIn this quirky fantasy, Quincy Flack, a boy who believes he's cursed, moves to a new village with his abusive aunt and uncle (think the Dursleys) and is befriended by Megan Mugwood, a plucky girl who lives with her widowed mother, experiencing hard times since her father was killed by a dragon. Next thing you know, they've met a wizard—he says he's not—who can "grow mountains."
This is rather oddly told, from the point of view of each new character that Quincy, Megan, and Pagfire encounter, rather than the other way around, so you really don't get a whole lot of character development. But it's a fun story to see how the coincidences work out.
Unearthing The Secret Garden, Marta McDowellI say I didn't inherit the Italian gene for gardening; however, I can't seem to resist these garden-related books by McDowell (Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder). Maybe because I would like to have a beautiful walled garden like in the Burnett book, but don't want to do the work!
If you like The Secret Garden, you'll probably enjoy this book, as it tells an abridged version of Burnett's life, and her special affection for gardens: wherever she lived, she always had one, even if it was a leased property. If you love gardens/gardening, then this is just the book for you, with beautiful black-and-white/color photographs of Burnett in her gardens or just of the flowers in her gardens. As a bonus, the volume includes three of Burnett's short writings: an essay about her gardens, an article about the "ha-ha," an English estate feature that separated gardens from parkland, and the story of the robin that inspired the robin character in The Secret Garden.
The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, Caitlin RozakisVivian and Daniel Tanaka and their five-year-old daughter Aria were just normal people until Aria is bitten by an emotionally-disturbed werewolf. Since she can't go to a human-only school because of her unfortunate tendency to shift, sometimes in mid-play, they are forced to send her to the magical Grimoire Grammar school, where Vivian feels left out because she's only mortal, and tries to juggle Aria's magical curriculum and be part of a community. But someone seems to be targeting Aria as part of a prophecy that states the community will be destroyed.
Think PTA politics taking place at Hogwarts. The enjoyment in this book is the magical, yet mundane, universe that Rozakis builds around the Tanaka family, with gossiping, pushy parents.
Feuds, edited by Mercedes LackeyThese are 21 new stories from Lackey's world of Valdemar, about Heralds, Bards, Healers, and recurring characters like Nwah the kyree.
I'm still really not sure that I like the "themed" volumes that they've done the last few times. Shenanigans rather bored me, although Anything With Nothing was better. I have to say about this one, though, that I enjoyed how each writer addressed "feuds" differently, with different concepts (especially the first story, which had the creepy "full circle" vibe to it), and that there's really not a bad story in the bunch. We even get a Vanyel story where he pairs up with his aunt in a story that parallels Romeo and Juliet. I got a big kick out of Vanyel posing as "Jackomo, Prince of Minstrels and Minstrel to the Prince," revealing that Misty Lackey is a fan of the wonderful Danny Kaye film The Court Jester (Kaye poses as Giacomo, King of Jesters and Jester to the King).
The Martians, David BaronWho hasn't heard of the Lowell Observatory? Certainly I'd heard about it, and thought Percival Lowell was a famous scientist.
He wasn't, just a rich Massachusetts dilettante from the famous Lowell family of cotton mill fame (Amy Lowell, the 19th century poet famous for "Patterns," was his sister). He went looking for novelty, including during trips abroad, where he encountered the charismatic Camille Flammarion, an astronomer who opened the minds of hundreds to the wonders of space. But the real obsession with Mars began when astronomers at the Lick Observatory spotted three lights in a triangular pattern and an Italian named Schiaparelli mapped the planet and identified lines he called "channels," translated as "canals" in English, clear evidence of life on Mars—and Martian obsession was on, with everyone from H.G. Wells to Nikola Tesla involved.
If you thought alien-mania started after Roswell, this will disabuse the notion. Illustrated with black-and-white pictures from the newspapers of the time.
The Mating Game, Lana FergusonThis is a companion book to Ferguson's The Fake Mate (Nate, the doctor in that novel, is related to Hunter Barrett). I wasn't enchanted by that one, but this one was half price...another omegaverse novel, this about Tess Covington, who discovers she's a late-bloomer wolf-shifter who's also an omega about to go through her first heat. Her doctors tell her it would be dangerous to take heat suppressants before her first heat, so she's advised to keep away from alphas.
Unfortunately, her next client for redesign—she and her brothers are hoping for a home redesign show on HGTV—is Hunter Barrett, a small-town lodge owner, an alpha who's avoiding romance. The prospects for the redesign are good, since the lodge is charming but how will these two stay away from each other, especially after Tess starts going into full-blown heat?
I liked this one a little better. The lodge sounds like a really nifty place and Hunter's protectiveness of Tess was very sweet.
30 September 2025
Books Completed in September 2025
Just what it says: a collection of verse to cheer you through hard times. Poets range from Whittier to Gibran and Shakespeare to Browning.
I find the darnedest things at Books-a-Million. This one was amusing and sad and thoughtful all at once, a collection of anecdotes from police officers and detectives across the country, talking of everything from violent crime to amusing incidents involving kooky complaints. There are some very sobering stories about domestic violence and violence against children, sad stories of relationships gone bad, of the suffering caused by criminal violence, and among prostitutes and their pimps.
Some good reading in short, digestible bits.
Tenth in the "Noodle Shop" mysteries, and Lana Lee has become part of the team preparing for a big Chinese New Year celebration at the Asia Village shopping center, where her parents run their noodle shop. Part of the celebration includes the performance of a dance troupe featuring the traditional Chinese dragon doing a Lion Dance. Unfortunately, the performers behind the Chinese dragon are in contention with each other, and then one of them is killed.
Of course, everyone assumes Lana will investigate the crime, since she's been so successful in the past! Even her boyfriend, Adam, a police detective, doesn't seem to mind this time around.
I guess I'm getting a little jaded with the "Lana (and Megan) solve a mystery" plots and didn't read this one with as much joy as in the past.
I thought McNiven would never finish this history of US-20. The first book came out ten years ago.
Once again—sigh—McNiven has left the footnotes online.
The rest of the book is delightful, following US-20 from Chicago and the year of the exposition and "The White City" to the end of the "trail" in Oregon, touching on the rise of mail-order and the decline of the once-great newspaper empire, the creation of "the plow that broke the Plains" (and then nearly destroyed them), Western painters and prairie hardships, the great cowboy adventures, the epic journey of the camera, and more.
After the Great Depression destroys both her mother's and father's means of making a living, pre-teen Ellie, her older sister Esther, and her little brother Samuel, and their parents must live in a roughly-built house on Echo Mountain, trading with five other families to be able to eat and survive. Her father hunts and cuts trees for lumber until the day one of the trees falls and severely injures him. Now Ellie must help her family survive, but she's also determined that she will help cure her father, who lies deep in a coma.
Unfortunately, in doing what it takes to survive, Ellie makes herself unpopular with both her sister and mother.
This is a rather grim look at the Depression days and what people had to do to survive. Strong stomachs are necessary for reading this, as many of the medical emergencies Ellie and her family face are graphically described.
This was a small one-off volume that
Taber wrote after the death of her lifelong friend—they met in college—and co-owner of the Connecticut
farmhouse known as Stillmeadow, Eleanor Mayer, known as "Jill" in
Gladys' magazine columns and subsequent books. It appeared that Mayer passed away after a
sudden illness, but there are not many details and it sounds more like cancer). Both
Gladys' daughter and Eleanor's two children are grown, so she must
adjust to life alone in the house. She talks about her grief and then
her efforts to recover.
As a Stillmeadow book, this fills in the blanks between The Stillmeadow Road and Stillmeadow Calendar.|
31 August 2025
Books Completed in August 2025
Alex Lawson's never felt at home at her dad's place in Florida, where she's been ridiculed for his conservation efforts. The only place she feels at ease is online, where she creates a detailed website for her favorite television series The Arcane Files. But when she meets the star, Devin Ashwood, in person at a convention, a thoughtless remark he makes afterward turns her off him and his character, a werewolf who's also an FBI agent.
Years later, Devin Ashwood, the series over and looking for a new role, wakes up in a field nearly naked, and discovers from a news report that cameras caught him transforming into a werewolf. Everyone else thinks it's a promo for a revival of the series, but he realizes that somehow he's become a werewolf like the character he played on television and searches for a way to reverse it, finding Alex's detailed website. Not knowing she's the young woman he unwittingly insulted years ago, he travels to Florida to meet her. And to her surprise, she agrees to help him.
This is an engaging fantasy-romance with some hard truths about the traumas of child actors and bullied people who don't fit in.
Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear arrive in Wyoming's Wind River Canyon to help Rosey Wayman, an old friend of Walt's recently transferred to the area. She keeps hearing a mysterious radio message from a Highway Patrolman requesting assistance—except this Patrolman died years ago in a fiery crash. Wayman's supervisors think she's going nuts, so Walt and Henry need to figure out who's playing a prank on her—and, if it's not a prank, what's going on.
Great little novella with what seems like a supernatural twist—but it will keep you guessing until the end.
Annie Kelly and her sister Emily, daughters of Irish immigrants, move to the bustling city of Chicago in the late 1800s to work at Marshall Field as salesgirls; Annie meets wealthy John and marries well, Emily falls in love with practical Henry Gale, who wants to homestead in Kansas. Annie tries to talk her out of it, but Emily and Henry are married, and he moves to Kansas to start a family farm while Emily waits until Annie's daughter is born to join him. A daughter named Dorothy.
This is the story of "Auntie Em" and her life before and then after Dorothy came to live in Kansas. Gaynor weaves a credible story about the homesteaders on the prairie, their early crop successes, and then the drought that came to ruin all their hopes of success. Becomes a vivid portrait not only of a woman trying to make her niece feel safe and loved, but of the Dust Bowl that scoured the land, ruined lives, and killed.
Miranda Barnes, writer and literary agent, writer of young adult fic under the name of Hathaway Smith, is still smarting from bad reviews of her last novel, in which she killed off a popular main villain. She goes home to her parents at the little town of Bard's Rest, which revolves around Shakespeare and the town's annual Shakespeare festival, to complete the next novel in the series. Next thing you know, she's not only been roped into directing one of the festival plays by her actress mother, but she keeps encountering Adam Winters, the new town vet and the guy who ditched her on prom night to go with her older sister Portia, a hotshot lawyer. (Her younger sister Cordelia—sense a theme here?—is the town's favorite baker.)
Enjoyed the story and the characters. There's a sequel about Portia out as well. Wonder if Cordelia will get matched next?
This is not just the story of Anna Sewell and her family—her mother and aunt were also writers in "the domestic sphere" as was expected of women in their day—but of the growing movement of rights for animals, whose fate in the late 18th/early 19th century was grim: carriage and wagon horses beaten to death in the streets, vivisection, kittens and puppies drowned after birth. Alternating with the story of Sewell and her family is the story of a public becoming aware of the feelings and treatment of animals. Both an interesting story about Sewell's health problems and a little-known history of animal rights.
This book is the literary equivalent of watching Bob Ross painting shows. Really, nothing happens. Reverie Vyse, a faerie, and her best friend Cerise (also a faerie) run a bookstore and cafe. Decan Jarris applies for the job of barista after their current barista has to leave. He's a whiz at his job and soon business picks up even more. But Decan's deepest wish is to be a successful musician, but he's been beat down by doubts. His love of Reverie helps him accomplish that. Basically, the whole story is about moral support. It's very sweet.
Horrified to see in a published book the misuse of the word "phased." It should have been "fazed." Also, Decan (and sometimes Reverie) "smirk" too many times when a smile is supposed to be gentle or heartfelt. "Smirking" is sarcastic and is often used to hurt the person being smirked at, and is used correctly very rarely in this book.
After a short overview of Nelle Harper Lee's childhood, the book goes into the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird and the praise and notoriety the novel gained. then covers the making of the film before addressing other topics such as "Is To Kill a Mockingbird racist?", Harper Lee's descent into privacy, the publication of Go Set a Watchman and the hue-and-cry over the revelation that Atticus Finch was racist himself, and the continued relevance of the novel and the film in the 21st century. A natural for any fan of To Kill a Mockingbird. I had to read it after meeting Mary Badham in person!
College freshman Liv Walden, still smarting from the death of her father (who hooked her on the science-fiction universe of Starveil), is devastated when Matt Spartan, the hero of the Starveil universe, is killed in the latest film. Her best friend Xander, who dresses in steampunk fashion, tries to placate her, and her mother is determined that Liv's fandom obsession won't hurt her grades. Secretly, Liv creates another identity to start a campaign to bring Matt Spartan back, ropes Xander into helping her, and is astonished when the movement not only gains speed, but becomes a nationwide campaign.
I bought this because the second half of the book takes place at DragonCon (although I was giggling like crazy when Liv is looking at a panel schedule in July, since the D'Con schedule usually isn't up until two weeks before the con), and it does a good job capturing the frenetic madness taking place at five host hotels and the Atlanta Merchandise Mart every Labor Day weekend. It does a less good job explaining how Liv actually got her mom's permission to go to DragonCon (since her mom screamed at her because she failed calculus—although why in the frag did Liv take it in the first place? there's no math requirement in college, especially for someone who's studying the visual arts like she is, unless you're going into a math or science field). Or if they ever worked it out about her mom's busybody boyfriend whom her mom inappropriately shared private information with? Seems Mom was suddenly okay with fandom when she found out Liv could get a job in it!!!! And Xander with his "dearest" is simply too precious for words.
Then and now photos from my old home town, including my high school, the old coal mine at Garden City Shopping Center, and even "the bad boys school" at Sockanossett.
This is #4 in the "Nikki Heat" series, supposedly written by the "Castle" of ABC television fame. Basically, the Nikki Heat books are Castle stories under a different name
and a couple of tweaks. Kate Beckett becomes sexy Nikki Heat, Castle
morphs into magazine journalist Jameson Rook (Castle/Rook, get it?), Ryan and Esposito are Raley
and Ochoa, Laney Parish turns into Lauren Parry. Rook even has an
actress mom; the only character missing is Alexis, and Captain "Montrose" has been replaced by the ineffective Captain Irons.
In this outing, the frozen body of a woman in her 40s is found in a suitcase that is inscribed with Nikki Heat's initials; this is because the suitcase belonged to Nikki's mother, who was murdered on Thanksgiving Eve years earlier and who's the reason Heat became a cop. Soon Heat and Rook are not only on the trail of the anonymous corpse's killer, but also finding out more about Cynthia Heat's death.
This is a complicated mystery that nevertheless contains many inside jokes: I’m
convulsed by the names of a pair of detectives on loan to help solve
the murder: Detectives Malcolm and Reynolds. Jameson
Rook, Castle’s avatar, even has the line: “I can’t quite put my finger
on it, but there’s something I like about Detectives Malcolm and
Reynolds." (On Firefly, Nathan Fillion played Malcolm Reynolds.)
30 June 2025
Books Completed in June 2025
The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, David McCullough
This is the last of the original novels written by Collins and based on the CBS series.
In one of two small casinos in the town of Boot Hill, Nevada, two rival biker gangs come to a head and have a shootout. Innocent casino employees die, and the head of one of the gangs. If someone doesn't solve the latter's murder quickly, there will be a gang war that will tear apart the small town. To work the crime quickly, the LVCSU sends Gil Grissom, Catherine Willows, Sara Sidle, Nick Stokes, and their temporary tech Sofia Curtis there.
In the meantime, Warrick Brown and Greg Sanders are left to handle the rest of the Las Vegas deaths, and they keep coming hot and heavy.
This is the first time the two different case investigations don't merge into one in a Collins book. I think Collins got tired of writing these books, because this one isn't quite up to the others, even if the casino mystery is very twisty.
Ah, there's nothing like a good linguistics book!
When people think of "Old English," usually what comes to mind is Shakespeare or, perhaps a little earlier, Chaucer, and funny word uses like "Ye Olde" somethingorother. Well, surprise, folks: Chaucer is Middle English, and Shakespeare is Early Modern English. "Old English" is the language of Beowulf, and untrained persons can't read it at all. The "wordhord" of the title is the language that poets and singers, and other wordsmiths, drew upon to tell stories.
This is the story of everyday life in Old English, starting with the basics, such as food and drink. Hlaf, for example, was the word for bread, and its descendant is still around: loaf. You might also have your æg with butere. Next come morning chores, then the work of the day, amusements after work and friends to share them with, all the way to the world outside and the animals and curiosities to find there. Much fun if you're into linguistics!
(By the way, "Ye" is pronounced "The." The "Y" in the "Ye" stuff is a stand-in for a letter that doesn't exist any longer, thorn (þ), pronounced as "th.")
This was the book about grief that I finally chose for myself; it was better than the religious-based text I was loaned (although I did get a few good things from it). It discusses the things they don't tell you about grief: the anger, the emptiness, the well-meaning people who want to make you feel better and can't, and the clueless people who wonder when "you're going to get over it."
I made notes in it, too. Don't judge me.
I've been waiting for this book to come out in paperback, being a big fan of Huckleberry Finn. It's Jahren's story about Mary Jane Guild, who leaves her home near Lake Winnipeg and eventually travels to Fort Edwards in Illinois to care for her Aunt Evelyn and Uncle George and cousins Susan and Joanna; on the way, she meets an unconventional female steamboat captain and a Mormon family.
Things are tougher from there: Uncle George has suffered a grievous injury, and the family is starving. Mary Jane manages to save them all, until sickness overtakes the adults. Soon, Mary Jane, pretending she is Susan and Joanna's sister, accompanies them to their new legal guardian, Peter Wilks, in Greenville, Mississippi.
Yes, that Peter Wilks. For this is "Mary Jane, the red-headed one" from Huckleberry Finn. So, this is fanfiction, then—well-written fanfic, but fanfic. And Jahren does make it work as a book about a strong, resourceful young woman who tries to do her best. But boy, does she do a hack job on Peter Wilks. You know nothing about him from Finn, just that he died, and he had a bag of gold and a tattoo on his chest. Jahren makes him a reprehensible man even without his slave-owning: a penny-pincher from Yorkshire with really gross habits.
She also introduces a bunch of original characters, like Eddie the Jewish peddler, and a big dog named Cherry, and has Mary Jane fall in love with Huckleberry Finn in his guise of "Joe," the "valley" to "the King" and "the Duke" who are pretending to be Wilks' brothers.
Jahren's narrative style is first-rate; she keeps the story going and introduces side characters based on actual historical characters, but they all seemed to be jam-packed in as if she couldn't bear to leave any out. And once Huck gets the Duke and the King arrested, the ending is kinda Lord of the Rings (the films). I did enjoy it because of Mary Jane herself, but it has its flaws. (One of them is dates: Huck Finn takes place during the reign of William IV; Mary Jane talks about Queen Victoria being on the throne, and her favorite book, in 1846, is Dickens' A Child's History of England, which was written in the mid-1850s.)
It was $3 at Half-Price Books. Kind of an edited version of a Bottom Line Personal book.
Murphy spent 20 years in the Orange County district attorney's office, and, as they say on Law & Order, these are his stories.
Most of them are grim, although there are anecdotes about stupid criminals as well. One of the most fascinating—and repulsive—chapters was about a sexual predator named Rodney Alcala, who actually appeared as a contestant on The Dating Game! But all the chapters are fascinating, whether about a married couple selling their boat who were never seen again, to the ill-fated partnership of Chris Smith and Ed Shin that boded not well for Chris, who suddenly sold his half of a business and went on walkabout.
There's a lot of behind-the-scenes of an investigation into a crime, the long hours of work that go into a case (to the point that Murphy gave up on personal relationships altogether), and how the different parts of the investigative team work together to close a case. Murphy sometimes gets a little heavy on "how I gave up my life to prosecute bad guys," but the narrative about the criminals and cases themselves is first-rate.
29 February 2024
Books Completed Since February 1
The FBI, Ronald KesslerThis isn't a history of the agency, but a book about the different departments of the Bureau and what each is responsible for (and sometimes not responsible for), with alternating chapters about each of the field offices and how they differ depending on the region of the country they're in. It's also pretty much the story of how the Bureau operates now, rather than during the reign of its first famous Director, J. Edgar Hoover.
You'll find some great stories about FBI busts, but a lot more about eccentricities, including a director so thick he was known as "Cement Head" and a New York agent who expected discounts for everything. You'll discover that the Miami office is known as "the Super Bowl of crime," that the famous BAU is hideously understaffed despite the popularity of television shows like Criminal Minds, and that there's a London field office everyone would like to be assigned to.
A large part of the end of the book recounts Kessler's investigation into irregularities in the business dealings of FBI director William Sessions and how it brought about his eventual resignation.
The Personal Librarian, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher MurrayThis is a novel based on the fascinating life of Belle da Costa Greene, who for most of her life was the personal librarian for the banker/collector J. P. Morgan, who was obsessed with creating a personal library that contained the rare manuscripts of the world, including a jewel-encrusted Gutenberg Bible and an extremely rare Caxton Bible. But Belle had an amazing secret kept all her life: her real name was Belle Marion Greener. Her father Richard Greener was the first Black graduate of Harvard and tireless fighter for civil rights. However, both he and his wife were light-skinned and she decided that she did not want her children being discriminated against. So Belle and her sisters and brother were brought up in a white world (Belle and her brother's slightly darker skin was explained by "a Portuguese grandmother"), "passing," and wondering every day would be the day they would be outed to a world of hatred and distrust.
Benedict and Murray have written an incredible tale about a talented and forward-looking woman who was a self-made expert in rare books and who bought some incredible treasures for the Morgan library—indeed, Morgan and several members of his family considered Belle a treasure and an asset—one of the finest private libraries ever assembled.
For Belle's true story: An Illuminated Life.
Book Lovers, Emily HenryNora Stephens loves books, but she loves her sister (who she's cared for since their mother died, despite the fact that Libby is married and already the mother of two) more. So she's kept her job as literary agent and taken no chances with a personal life. When she sends a favorite client's new manuscript to one of the best editors in the business, the icy Charlie Lastra, he tells her the book is unrealistic. It's set in Sunshine Falls, NC, a sweet little small town that just happens to be the place her sister wants to spend a little "sisters only" time. The protagonist of the new book is also based on Nora.
Indeed, the sisters find out Sunshine Falls is a lot different, but the same, as it was portrayed in the manuscript. For one, guess who's working there: Charlie Lastra: it's his hometown and he's trying to keep his ill father's bookstore afloat. And she finds out Libby is trying to make a perfect Hallmark romance for her.
And that maybe Libby and her husband are keeping secrets from her.
This book reminds me of Check & Mate, which I read later in the month: a woman protagonist who makes the decision to take all the family responsibilities on herself, putting her life on hold for the sake of everyone else. Charlie does the same thing. It's irritating. So is Libby's habit of calling Nora "Sissy." However, Sunshine Falls is kinda charming. But...no wifi? Not going.
The Improbable "Meet Cute" Collection:The Exception to the Rule by Christina Lauren
Worst Wingman Ever by Abby Jimenez
Rosie and the Dreamboat by Sally Thorne
Drop, Cover, and Hold On by Jasmine Guillory
With Any Luck by Ashley Poston
Royal Valentine by Sariah Wilson
Six novelettes for Valentine's Day. My favorite was the Jimenez piece involving a woman nursing her terminally ill grandmother, and the man who starts leaving her notes after leaving her the wrong note. Rosie was my next favorite, even if it did involve someone being trapped in a sensory deprivation tank! I wish there had been a warning involved. My least favorite was probably the princess one because it was a cliche.
Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy, Damien LewisI knew Josephine Baker only as a talented African-American singer and dancer who fled the racism of the United States and adopted France as her home, where she was lauded and lionized in the 1920s-1930s.
I had no idea of her role in the war effort during World War II! Teamed chiefly with Maurice Abtey, a daring and fearless veteran of the previous war, Baker not only used her own funds to keep fellow French citizens alive with food and clothing, but ran spy missions as she gave performances around Europe for morale purposes. Secret messages were hidden in her musical scores, and sometimes she was just hours ahead of enemy forces. At one point she almost dies while on a mission.
This book is fascinating when it concentrates on Josephine's life and spy work. However, the author admits there is limited material about this, and many facts are repeated multiple times. So only half the book is about Josephine, the rest is about France's spy network, how it worked, all the agents involved, etc. If a person involved in the spy network is introduced as part of Josephine's story, you learn their entire history, what they did for the resistance, and what happened to them. All these facts formed an interesting framework to Baker's story, but if you're reading the book just for Baker herself, the story could have been told in half the pages.
Be Still My Heart, Emily McIntire and Sav R. MillerThis is a mystery thriller co-written by the author of Hooked, and while the romance isn't as dark, it's a pretty intense ride both plotwise and sexually.
Lincoln Porter is a lobsterman trying to keep the family business on Skelm Island, Maine, afloat, still embittered by the death of his best friend when he was eleven years old. He's also busy trying to referee between his sister and her police officer husband, who helps Lincoln on his boat. But when Lincoln finds a dead body in one of his lobster traps, two mainland police officers are dispatched to the island to assist the understaffed Skelm police force: Andy Lopez and his partner Sloane, a profiler who's still under psychiatric care after being kidnapped by a serial killer. Lincoln and Sloane immediately start striking sparks off each other, and not just because she's investigating him as a murderer.
Sex and suspense whet off each other as Sloane tries to piece out the string of murders that occur, as well as bringing some very nasty Skelm secrets to the fore. Enjoyable as both a dark mystery and steamy romance.
Zero Through Lazy Eight: The Romance of Numbers, Alexander Humez, Nicholas Humez, Joseph McGuireYeah, I do occasionally read math books. This one is about numbers, from zero through thirteen and then the "lazy eight"=infinity, and how each of them have effected literature and history. What did they do before zero was a placeholder? Why is seven a "lucky number"? What's special about prime numbers, Fibonacci series, pi, and more?
Yes, some of the text wanders into algebra and other mathematics concepts that make my eyes cross. Still a lot of fun to read.
Check & Mate, Ali HazelwoodMallory Greenleaf's father taught her chess at an early age, and she was outstanding at it. But at age 14 she gave up chess and her winning streak after her father left home, instead concentrating on her family. Since her mother is ill, she gives up college to work to support them. But when she has a chance to win some badly-needed money to keep the family afloat, she returns to play one more chess match—ends up beating the current young rising star chess champion Nolan Sawyer. The money is too good, her family needy, so Mal is back in competition, trying to keep her participation secret from her mother and younger sisters.
I guess I don't understand the obsession with chess. I was also a bit infuriated with Mallory's mother. Yes, I understood she was chronically ill with arthritis, but couldn't she notice how Mallory was stressed? It's only at the end she admits she noticed! And her sisters are totally obnoxious. Why doesn't her mom discipline them? Just because she has RA doesn't mean she can't keep them in line. They harass Mallory and the older of the two is a complete brat. Nolan, who's supposed to be "the enemy," is the nicest person of the bunch, as well as Mallory's offbeat mentor Oz.
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, David GrannThis is a collection of factual stories about people whose interests often bordered on obsession. The opening story gives the collection its title: about the mysterious death of a Sherlock Holmes aficionado whose massive collection lacked one particular item. One of the oddest stories is about Steve O'Shea, a marine biologist who continues (at least at the time of Grann's article) to look for a young giant squid to observe in captivity. He spends most of his time searching for baby squid or diving for them. Another is a very scary story about the sandhogs digging a third water supply for New York City since the first two cannot be turned off any longer due to the age of the equipment!
The creepiest story in the collection may be the one about the Aryan Brotherhood, which began in maximum security prisons as a racist organization, but which is now a well-organized association for protecting—and punishing—prisoners and their families. All of them are worth reading, about twelve very different people/groups in a dozen different situations.