Book of the Month: April

Ruth Heald's book The Wedding is my best book for April. It is a tight psychological thriller with more twists and turns than any other book I have ever read in my lifetime. That's a long, long time.  The plot concerns the events of the last week before Lauren and Adam's wedding. After dating for 18 years they plan on getting married in the same church Lauren's late parents married in. Lauren's parents died in a freak rafting accident 18 years ago. Both Lauren and Adam's families were vacationing together when the accident happened. What happened then matters to the plot as Lauren puts the final touches on her wedding.

The Tea Planter's Daughter

The Tea Planter's Daughter is the first book written by Janet MacLeod Trotter that I have read.  I love books set in India and Trotter has written a four book series called the India Tea Book Series.  I am planning on reading them all.  In The Tea Planter's Daughter, the first book of the series, 18 year old Clarissa Belhaven resides in the Assam region of India.  Her family's tea plantation is slowly going out of business and her father, the owner of the plantation, is grieving the sudden loss of his wife.  Clarissa's younger sister Olive needs a mother and Clarissa provides her with motherly care.  Being beautiful and headstrong, Clarissa attracts the attention of the young and brash Wesley Robson, a rival tea planter.  Before his intentions become fully clear, tragedy befalls the Belhaven family and the sisters must sell their plantation.  They move to Tyneside, an industrial town in England, which is vastly different from Assam.  In order to start over, Clarissa has to endure extreme poverty as she finds employment in a pub and is worked to the bone by her bosses. Olive must also begin working and helps out with household work in the pub owner's home.

I enjoyed this story but expected at least half of it to take place in India. Most of it takes place in England and the English setting has never appealed to me. It is cold, grey and rainy like the city I live in. Escape to a warm weather place is ideal.  That said, the plot premise is good and it was executed well.  I remained interested in the story while reading as the quick pace moved the action along nicely.  

The two sisters were appealing characters.  I could feel their pain when they lost their home in India and had to move to  a foreign land.  I couldn't help but root for them. The Robson family provided the villains for the novel. For Clarissa, she both despised and secretly loved one of them, the handsome Wesley.  They met in India where Wesley was running his family's tea estate but their lives also crossed many times in England, providing the book's drama. 

4 out of 5 stars.

Shadow Life

 

Shadow Life was published in March 2020 by First Second.  It is a graphic novel written by Hiromi Goto and illustrated by Ann Xu and is about Kumiko, a 76 year old woman.  Kumiko's middle aged adult daughters place her in an assisted living home against her wishes. However, she agrees to give it a try.  Kumiko does not like living there, runs away and finds herself a cozy bachelorette pad.  She keeps her location a secret from her daughters, even while they are talking on the phone.  Kumiko loves decorating as she pleases, eating whatever she wants and swimming in the community pool. Something has followed her though from the assisted living place - death's shadow.  

I enjoyed this story.  It is pretty cool that a bisexual senior Japanese Canadian lady is the protagonist in a comic and it shows what many seniors go through with their adult children.  For some reason they always want to lock seniors up in a facility.  Kumiko screams to the universe that she is not ready to die.  The story has a supernatural element in that Kumiko sees and fights what she believes is death's shadow.  The shadow is seen in the illustrations as spiders that are trying to consume her.  The theme of autonomy is a real world problem for seniors.  This theme is explored in Kumiko's fight for control of her life decisions from her daughters. I found the daughters quite bossy but realistic in their attempts to take over their mother's life decisions.

The black and white illustrations match the gloominess of the story and the drawings of Kumiko's body, particularly the naked ones, were spot on.  She has rolls of fat allover and they have drooped with the aging process.  Her leaking bladder is also realistic for older women.  It interesting that this fiftysomething writer knows so much about being a senior and can write from a senior's point of view.  Hiromi Goto has done a great job with this comic.

5 out of 5 stars!

The Woman in the Green Dress

This story takes place in Australia and the time period alternates between the 1850s and 1919. After a whirlwind romance, London teashop waitress Fleur Richards cannot wait for her new husband Hugh to return from the war. When word of his death arrives on Armistice Day, Fleur learns he has left her a huge fortune.  Fleur does not want to accept the inheritance because they were not married very long but travels to his beloved home in Australia to search for his relatives who she believes deserves the fortune more than her.   She soon finds that she is the sole owner of a remote farm and a rundown curio shop full of preserved animals.  With the help of Kip, a repatriated soldier dealing with war wounds, Fleur finds herself unable to resist looking into Hugh's family's past. What she finds is a shocking story about a large opal and a woman in a green dress.  

I enjoyed the 1919 story much more than the 1850 story.  The latter seemed to drag on and on.  I did not see any connection with the former and found myself skipping pages.  As far as the woman in the green dress is concerned, there wasn't much said about her at all.  Perhaps a different title would have been best because my expectation while reading was to read about this particular woman. However, she did not have much to do with the plot. 

The Australian setting descriptions were elaborate.  I could feel like I was there myself and experience what the characters were experiencing.  It was amusing to think about a small town being larger and more developed than the eventual capital, Sydney.  The Australian landscape was in stark contrast to England where Fleur was living during the war.  As she sees more and more of Australia, Fleur remembers how Hugh described various cities and towns where he grew up.  As she travels within the country, the long commutes from one place to another contribute to the setting.  Fleur needs to travel 2 days to get from Sydney to Mogo Creek in New South Wales where her husband grew up, taking a train, a boat and walking on foot for hours in order to get there. 

Learning about the Australian landscape 100+ years ago was fun. Unfortunately, that was all that I liked about this novel.  2 out of 5 stars.

Stacking the Shelves #4

 

This morning I added two new graphic novels to my library.  Andy Warhol the Factory is a graphic biography of artist Andy Warhol. The graphics of the book are quite busy and it is still downloading on my Kindle 4 hours after I purchased it this morning.  In fact, it may be breaking my Android.  

Shadow Life is the story of Kumiko, a 76 year old widow, whose adult daughters put in an assisted living facility. Kumiko runs away and finds a cozy bachelorette pad to live in. She continues to communicate with her daughters online, never revealing her location.  However, death's shadow haunts her as she fights for her life. It was published last month. 

I am looking forward to reading both of these books.  It's been almost a month since I have read a comic/graphic novel.  Way too long.

The Wedding

Lauren Haywood and Adam Glenister are finally getting married after an eighteen year courtship.  As Lauren is putting the final touches on their upcoming wedding she begins receiving threatening messages from someone who wants to stop her wedding from occurring. When Lauren receives a card, she expects to see a congratulatory message about her upcoming wedding.  However, inside the envelope was a photograph of a doll that looked just like her.  The doll was wearing a torn wedding dress and her neck was cut.  A short note was written inside, "he does not love you."   The couple have been planning a ceremony in the same church that Lauren's late parents were married in. They both died in a water rafting accident eighteen years ago and Lauren has been estranged from her sister Tracey since their deaths.  As Lauren dreads seeing her sister again at the wedding, it becomes clear to her that Adam has not been truthful about his past.  To add to Lauren's drama, she has planned a destination wedding in Thailand at a resort hotel that her sister owns.  Then, the story gets twisted!

The Wedding is twist heaven.  I cannot think of any other book that I have read with so many twists. It made the book a fast read.  There are a small number of characters and almost all of them seemed like suspects because of the secrets that they held.  Just when I thought that I had figured out who the villain was, another twist developed that changed my mind.  The author used her characters to full advantage as the Haywood family drama was slowly revealed by them.  

The suspense began with the prologue, "I am no longer a bride.  I will not be a wife.  Not now. . . What am I even doing here?  I should have run away as fast as I could, away from this place, this hotel, away from her. But instead I have come back to this suite. . . Now the bed taunts me."  Given the book title, this makes the reader want to keep reading until you find out why these statements were made.  Most of the answers were not revealed until the end of the story.  The suspense was increased by short chapters and the ups and downs of each character's emotions, with the reason for them unknown until the ending.  

A fabulous thriller!  5 out of 5 stars.

The Girl in the Painting

 

This story takes place in Australia and it alternates between 1906 and 1862. Orphan Jane Piper is nine years old when philanthropists Michael and Elizabeth Quinn take her into their home to further her schooling.  The Quinns are no strangers to hardship. Having arrived in Australia as penniless immigrants, they now care for others as lost as they once were. Despite Jane's mysterious past, her remarkable aptitude for mathematics takes her far over the next seven years, and her relationship with Elizabeth and Michael flourishes as she plays an increasingly prominent role in their business.  When Elizabeth reacts in terror to an exhibition at the local gallery, Jane realizes no one knows Elizabeth after all - not even Elizabeth herself.  As the past and present converge and Elizabeth's grasp on reality loosens, Jane sets out to unravel her story before it's too late.  

This was an enjoyable read although the reason for the book title was not known until the latter third of the story.  I kept waiting to read about a painting and when it finally came I was somewhat disappointed that it didn't happen sooner.  If a mystery concerns a painting, the author should showcase that painting early on.  I enjoyed reading the descriptions about the Australian landscapes as I have never read a book set there.  This novel was set in Sydney, Hill End and Maitland as well as Ireland and England.  It was interesting that Maitland was more urban than Sydney in the late 1800s.

I always love a story that is told from alternating viewpoints and eras.  They read faster for me and this one was no exception.  While the story varied from the 1860s to the 1910s, it was also told from several viewpoints including Michael, Elizabeth and Jane's.  The author was able to weave a great story from these differing viewpoints, settings and a time period that spanned fifty years.  

5 out of 5 stars!

The Art Collector's Daughter

As I was reading this novel I had a sneaking suspicion that I had read it before or saw a movie based on it. It seemed familiar. A search of my blogger posts did not find anything so I continued to read.  It has an interesting plot but because it was so familiar I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have if the storyline was new to me. I guess I have read too many Nazi art theft novels.

The publisher's summary:  

As the German's advance on Paris in 1940, a young Jewish girl, Sylvie Vasseur, is sent by her father to rural Ireland to live with the Courtney family.  He also sends his valuable art collection - including a portrait of Sylvie by the renowned Mateus, Girl on a Swing.  Sylvie is education by the narcissistic elder son Nicholas Courtney when she is eighteen, but he abandons her when he discovers she is pregnant.  To avoid the inevitable social stigma, Sylvie marries his brother Peter.  In Dublin, she becomes involved in the art scene, achieving critical acclaim as a painter.  But, trapped in a loveless marriage, she continues to be obsessed with Nicholas.  Until, unexpectantly, secrets from her father's past emerge, leading her to question everything she once believed.  Shortly after, she is found drowned on a Wexford beach.

Seventeen years later, Claire Howard, struggling art historian, is hired by the Courtney family to record Sylvie's lifeworks.  Fascinated by the artist and working with Sylvie's son Sam, Claire travels between Dublin and Paris, eventually unravelling a labyrinth of deceit and lies that threaten to endanger her life.

The books is advertised as an historical thriller.  It is not a thriller but rather an historical mystery.  I don't think that the writing style meets the thriller formula. That said, the plot is intricate and sophisticated.  A plot twist at the halfway point moves the direction of the expected outcome toward a different path.  I was not expecting this twist and it added to my enjoyment of the novel.

The Irish setting interested me because I have never read a book that was set in Ireland.  When the story alternates between Ireland and Paris, the Paris setting is familiar to me as I have read many books that were set in France.  I have always loved reading about Paris.  The writing about Ireland, on the other hand, could have been more descriptive.  I was expecting to read more about the weather and the topography of the island.  What we read read about is the societal norms of the country, which I believe most readers already know about for this war era.

The characters could have been more developed, particularly Peter.  We don't really know what makes him tick.  Why did he put up with so much shunning from Sylvie? What is his personality like?  We know more about Nicholas than Sylvie's husband.  Nicholas is the usual male cad and we women know exactly what to expect from him.  Sylvie was a compelling character.  She grew from being a shy, fearful girl into a confident woman but only after discovering her artistic talents.  As an artist myself I can feel exactly what she feels when she is painting.  There is an ecstasy to the process of creating something on a canvas.

This was a good book but as I stated earlier, the familiarity of the story to other books that I have read affected my enjoyment of it. 3 out of 5 stars.

One Perfect Grave

What a great book!  This tight, psychological thriller kept me on the edge of my seat.  One Perfect Grave begins when the remains of two bodies are found in an open grave along a highway in Stillwater, Minnesota.  FBI Special Agent Nikki Hunt knows exactly who they are.  The bright blue jacket lying on the frozen ground belongs to Kellan Rhodes, the missing boy that she has been desperately trying to find for the last two days.  The other body is his mother Dana, who had been Nikki's main suspect.  Dana had lost custody of Kellan several years earlier due to her drug use.  Although the wounds on Dana's body suggest that she murdered her son and then committed suicide, Nikki finds evidence that suggests Dana was a victim too.  Dana was trying to regain custody of Kellan and Nikki finds boot prints at the scene that belong to someone else. When another child is reported missing, local journalist Caitlin Newport claims that the cases are linked.  Zach Reeves was taken away from his own mother in a custody battle, just as Kellan was.

This is the second book in the Nikki Hunt series, following last year's The Girls in the Snow.  I knew it would be a great read because The Girls was fabulous.  I was not disappointed.  The suspense began on the first page and continued until the ending which surprised me somewhat.  I was not expecting the plot to go in the direction that it did.  The setting is Minnesota during the winter.  This is the same setting as The Girls in the Snow and I wonder whether winter will be a theme in all of the books in the series.  The author grew up in Minnesota and is well familiar with its weather patterns.  Finding a dead body frozen in the snow is not unusual for Minnesota.  

The pace was fast but not as fast as The Girls in the Snow.  The Girls was more of a thriller than One Perfect Grave because of the pacing.  However, this one was just as good.  The clues and twists kept me guessing who the killer might be throughout my reading of the book. The Nikki character is a strong woman.  She shares custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, just as the mothers of the two missing/dead boys did.  This link to Nikki's private life was strong enough to make me think that perhaps her own daughter would go missing also  (she didn't). It certainly gave her the impetus to solve the crimes quickly. 

Highly recommended.  5 out of 5 stars! 

The Easter Sepulcre

I had already read three of Mel Starr's books in his Hugh de Singleton series before picking up this novel. Easter Sepulcher was fantastic as were the previous three books.  I really need to finish reading this series because I know that I will love them all.

Easter Sepulchre opens with several priest's clerks guarding the Easter Sepulcher, where the host and crucifix are stored between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. An Easter Sepulcher is a niche in the wall of a church where the host and a crucifix are placed on Good Friday and removed on Easter Sunday.  A velvet cloth is placed over it.  It is a privilege to keep watch over it so it is shocking when it is discovered that a priest's clerk named Odo has abandoned his post.  When the cover is removed on Easter Sunday in front of the congregation a dead man's body is there along with the host and crucifix.  It is Odo.  Surgeon Hugh de Singleton is called upon to investigate the death.  Hugh is also the bailiff to the powerful Lord Gilbert.

This story has alot of action.  There are thefts and more dead bodies piling up. Hugh organizes several all-night stakeouts in order to determine who the killer might be. The pace is quick which makes this a fast read. The characters are quite interesting, especially a homeless, mute holy man who lives in a run down cabin in the forest. At first he seems a little sketchy but it turns out that he has noticed much of what happens outside during the late hours when he goes out for walks.  Hugh's medical skills are interesting. Given that this story takes place in the medieval era, he uses poultices to draw out bacteria. The food consumed by the characters has a prominent place.  They are served meals such as sops in fennel, eels in bruit, peas and beans pottage, fraunt hemelle, dighted crab and leach lombard.  I am curious about what these meals taste like but would be afraid of tasting them if placed in front of me. The names of the foods certainly add to the medieval flavor of the novel. 

All in all, this book was a great read.  The fact that I read it yesterday, on Good Friday, added to my enjoyment.  5 out of 5 stars.

The French Paradox

The French Paradox is the 11th wine country mystery by Ellen Crosby. The mystery here involves Jackie Onassis and Lucie Montgomery's grandfather during their time together in Paris in 1949.  Jackie was there as an exchange student from Smith College.  While she was living there Jackie purchased several inexpensive paintings by an unknown 18th century artist.  Jackie also had a romantic relationship with a Virginia vineyard owner, Lucie's grandfather, which until recently was a well kept secret.

Seventy years later, Cricket Delacroix, Lucie's neighbor and Jackie's schoolfriend, is donating the now priceless paintings to a Washington, DC museum.  Lucie's grandfather is flying in to Virginia for Cricket's 90th birthday party which is being hosted by her daughter Harriet.  Harriet is rewriting a manuscript that Jackie left behind about Marie Antoinette and her portraitist.  Harriet is also planning on adding tell all secrets about Jackie to ensure that her book is a success.  On the eve of the party a world renowned landscape designer is found dead in Lucie's vineyard. The question is whether someone killed him for his thoughts on climate change, his connection to Jackie and the paintings.  

I had a difficult time getting interested in this novel and put it down for a few weeks. When I started reading again, it was still a little off. I noticed that the reader does not know that the landscape designer's death was a murder until the 80th page. That's is a long time to wait in a 243 page cozy mystery. There were several new characters too that probably won't be in future books. I wasn't sure if I should care about them or not but they were not memorable to say the least. Several of the usual characters did not have a role.

Perhaps I am just used to the usual formula that the author uses when writing her novels and expected the same.  I had a hard time accepting that Jackie Onassis had a connection but once I did the story then changed to a murder. The alternating plots didn't gel for me but several reviewers enjoyed the book.

2 out of 5 stars.

The Queen's Marriage

I don't usually read biographies let alone salacious ones at that. However, I have been watching Lady Colin Campbell's You Tube channel and she certainly knows alot about the royal and aristocratic families. I decided to take this book out of the library and see what new information there is inside it.  Most of the information is well known but there are a few shockers. Yes, this is a spoiler alert!  

So what's the shocking story?  When the Queen's sister Margaret was told that she could not marry her divorced love, Margaret let her sister know that her husband had been sleeping around.  The Queen not only lost her closest friend, Margaret, but felt estranged from her husband Phillip.  She fell into a deep depression and had electric shock treatments administered to her.  The Queen's advisors all said that she couldn't do her job if she was on psychiatric meds and in the 1950s shock treatment was well regarded and a fast treatment.  I find this shocking ( pun intended).  How could anyone believe that electric shock therapy was a good thing?  The Queen could have been permanently physically damaged.  What were they thinking?

The other astonishing tidbit was both the Queen and Princess Margaret were conceived via artificial insemination. Their mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, did not like sex and cut her husband off while on their honeymoon.  A reliable physician inserted King's George VI 's semen into her.  This all sounds pretty gross to me but the author said this was not unusual for aristocratic couples who could not conceive.  Sometimes a surrogate was used too.

The biography is a quick read and I enjoyed it despite having to reread the sections that seemed unbelievable. I had to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me.  5 out of 5 stars.

The Blended Quilt

The Blended Quilt is Wanda Brunstetter's 56th novel.  She created the Amish fiction genre in 1997 with the publication of her first book A Merry Heart.  She was 60 years old when that book was published! Although her ancestors were of the Anabaptist faith, her fascination with the Amish began when she married her husband, who had been raised as a Mennonite.  She is so well thought of in the Amish community that they read her books.  In addition to her Amish fiction series, Ms. Brunstetter has published 8 novellas, 7 cookbooks, 3 devotionals, 4 gift books and 14 middle grade children's novels, all set among the Amish.  She publishes between 3 and 8 books per year and began writing with her daughter-in-law Jean Brunstetter in 2016.  The Robin's Greeting was published earlier this month and next month An Amish Barn Raising will be published.

The Blended Quilt follows the life of Sadie Kuhns.  A year after returning to Indiana from a trip to Hawaii (see The Hawaiian Quilt) Sadie wants to create a quilt that blends the traditional Amish quilt with a Hawaiian quilt.  When she finishes it, a friend suggests that she write a book on the quilt. While she is writing her book, her boyfriend Wyman Kauffman becomes distant as she spends more time writing and talking about it than in paying attention to him.  He is jealous of the time that she spends with her personal pursuits and wonders if she is marriage material.  However, Sadie had concerns about their relationship before she even thought about making the quilt.  Wyman does not seem to be able to a job or profession.  Without a secure profession, Sadie doubts that he can support a wife and family.  Both wonder if there is any reason to continue their courtship.  

I have only read 4 other books by Wanda Brunstetter.  I am not sure why since her books are so well written.  At one time I was only interested in political mysteries but I believe I have let myself down by not reading her entire bibliography of books.  I loved The Blended Quilt and must make a determination to read through her book list.  As a feminist I was put off by Wyman's insistence on being center stage in Sadie's life.  Perhaps that is impractical given Sadie's Amish life but he annoyed me. Sadie, however, is a woman after my own heart.  Wanting to create a new type of quilt is impressive.  Writing a book about it is even better (in my view). Being a strong woman was not looked upon well in her community. Neither was travel, something Sadie has done while single.  She would like to return to Hawaii but never expects to be able to afford it.  While I realize that this is Amish fiction, I cannot wrap my head around the fact that being strong and proactive is considered a negative trait in a woman. 

5 our of 5 stars.