The Last to See Her

Title:  The Last to See Her

Author:  Courtney Evan Tate

Publication Information:  MIRA. 2020. 352 pages.

ISBN:  077830941X / 978-0778309413

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review for the Fall 2020 mystery/thriller blog tour from Harlequin Trade Publishing.

Opening Sentence:  "Genevieve tipped the courier and set the certified letter on the coffee table."

Favorite Quote:  "Sometimes, beauty came from pain. Beginnings came from endings. And new lives came from old ones that had come to an end. Her old life had taught her so many things. She would treasure them as she lived her new one."

***** BLOG TOUR *****

Review

The cast of characters: Genevieve - romance novelist, wife, sister. Thad - Genevieve's recently-ex husband. Meghan - doctor, wife, mother, sister. Joe - Meghan's husband. Jenkins - the private detective. Nate Hawkins - the police detective.

The mystery: Genevieve and Meg are on a sister's trip to New York City. On the first night of the trip, Genevieve disappears. There is no body. There is no trace of her. Murder? Abduction? Suicide? Something else all together?

The background:  Genevieve and Thad had a solid marriage until they didn't. They are newly divorced after Genevieve dragged out the process of signing the papers. Joe and Meghan are a solid couple, or are they?

The revelations: Who is sleeping with who? Who thinks about sleeping with who? Who suspects someone sleeping with someone? Who holds a grudge against who? Who harbors secrets of their own? The short answer - everyone! Secret households. Secret relatives. Secret relatives with secrets of their own. Secret affairs. Secret dreams. Secret pasts. Secret plans for revenge. The question is what each chooses to see, what each seeks to avenge, and what each lets go of. "I'm not delusional ... I know what the world is. I just choose to see the best in it." True or not? And for whom? I leave you to figure out and to decide.

The last to see Genevieve before she disappears is literally Meghan. The question, of course, is what happened to Genevieve and who is responsible? Given the small cast of characters, this book is more family drama than suspense. The first part of the book sets up this drama between husbands and wives and between sisters. Unfortunately, the drama starts to lose me with descriptions such this relationship:  "____ was sweet and docile, a golden retriever. Somehow, for some reason, ___ came to realize she preferred Dobermans...a fierce man who could protect his woman." Men, dogs, relationships... really?

Then, the story ventures elsewhere. Some aspects of this book are completely unbelievable. Yes, I realize it is fiction but nevertheless fiction that feels real creates a story. In this book, there is the police officer who gets personal, crossing all boundaries of professional ethics, with someone who could be a likely suspect. Then, there is the character whose actions do not match the stated description of their mental ability. The most likable and most genuine character ends up the private detective whose role is critical to the resolution of the mystery and yet tangential to the who-done-it question in that he is never a suspect.

If you choose to suspend all disbelief, the book read quickly and easily. It traverses past and present to show how Genevieve, Meghan, Thad, and Joe all arrive to the point of Genevieve's disappearance and what role they each play. The journey to that one is an interesting one fraught with family betrayals.

The thing that bothers me the most about the book is the resolution of the who-done-it. Without a spoiler, I will say that it does a disservice to a conversation that has serious implications for services and help that people may need. The treatment of this issue in the book is negative and, to my mind, an unnecessary answer to the mystery. The same resolution could be had with a completely different explanation, creating a character with much greater depth and interest. So, partly entertaining, partly annoying, and partly disappointing.

About the Book

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Courtney Evan Tate's The Last to See Her (MIRA; 12/29) is a twisty, fast-paced domestic suspense about sisters, secrets and betrayal--for fans of B.A. Paris and Riley Sager.

Genevieve, a writer, is about to finalize her divorce from her cheating husband Todd. So when her sister Meg, an ambitious physician, has a convention to attend in New York City, she invites Gen along to celebrate her return to single life. It will be a perfect sisters' getaway in the big city! But things go awry when, on their first evening at the hotel, Gen decides to take a late night walk and disappears without a trace. Eventually she is officially declared a missing person.

Suspicion soon falls on her sister Meg, who was the last person to see her.

Through twists and turns, it is revealed that Meg has been sleeping with her brother-in-law Todd... And then there is a question of a newly purchased insurance policy that just has just gone into effect before Gen’s disappearance. Both Todd and Meg deny any knowledge of it.

But has an actual crime been committed? Can it be proven? And if so, who is really the guilty one?

About the Author

Courtney Evan Tate is the nom de plume (and darker side) of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Courtney Cole. As Courtney Evan Tate, she is the author of Such Dark Things and I'll Be Watching You. Courtney grew up in rural Kansas and now lives with her husband and kids in Florida, where spends her days dreaming of new characters and storylines and surprising plot twists and writing them beneath rustling palm trees. Visit her on Facebook or at courtneycolewrites.com.

Buy Links

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Social Links

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Twitter: @Court_Writes
Instagram: @CourtneyColeWrites
Facebook: @CourtneyColeWrites
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A Girl is a Body of Water

Title:  A Girl is a Body of Water

Author:  Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Publication Information:  Tin House Publishing. 2020. 560 pages.

ISBN:  1951142047 / 978-1951142049

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Until that night, Kirabo had not cared about her."

Favorite Quote:  "Remember, be a good person, not a good girl. Good girls suffer a lot in this life."

"Apparently, both women and the sea were baffling, changeful:  today they are this, tomorrow they are that ... Water has no shape, depending on where it flows. The sea is inconsistent, it cannot be tamed, it does not yield to human cultivation, it cannot be owned; you cannot draw borders on the ocean. To the ancients, women belonged with the sea..."

This the story the ancients told to establish the control of a patriarchal Ugandan world in which twelve year old Kirabo is growing up. "Stories have such power you cannot imagine. that one turned women into migrants on land. Since then, women have been rootless - moved not just across places but clans, tribes, national, even races."

Kirabo is being raised by her grandparents - her father's parents. Her father lives in the city and visits occasionally. Her mother is a mystery that Kirabo wants to unravel. Who is she? Where is she? Why does she not want Kirabo? 

Although the main character is Kirabo, this is the story of many women, each depicting some aspect of the patriarchal, male dominated society. Kirabo, Alikisa, Ya, Abi, Gayi, Nnambi, Nsuutta, Nnakku, Giibwa, and other that I have possibly forgotten. Their stories are centered in the decisions and actions of the men in their lives - mainly Miiro, Tom, and Sio.

These characters are all interconnected and part of the whole picture being painted about being a woman and finding a voice and a place in this society. However, there are a lot of characters and it takes a long while to figure out which ones to remember and pay attention to. It seems like I get the main idea of the story and some of the character but there are likely details and story lines I missed as well. Some of the stories are not well developed and leave me wishing the book had dived deeper into that character of story thread.

The beginning of the book introduces an element of magical realism. Unfortunately, that story never develops or goes anywhere. I would love to know if that depiction of a woman's natural state and the way it is housed within a person has to do with Ugandan history or mythology. The books never explains it.

One main reason for my choosing this book is its setting in Uganda. This is possibly the first book I have read set in that nation and culture. The book mentions some of the political struggles in the nation, but that history is not central to this story. The key point of the book is the male-dominated, patriarchy which is clearly depicted. The language and some of the rites and festivals provide insight into culture as well. Diversity and representation in literature matters, and I find fiction a way of introduction to worlds I know nothing about.

The main theme of the book comes together, but perhaps fewer characters and greater depth to each would have created a story that resonated more emotionally.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Vesper Flights

Title:  Vesper Flights

Author:  Helen Macdonald

Publication Information:  Grove Press. 2020. 288 pages.

ISBN:  0802128815 / 978-0802128812

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Back in the sixteenth century, a curious craze began to spread through the halls, palaces and houses of Europe."

Favorite Quote:  "Most of all I hope my work is about a thing that seems to me of the deepest possible importance in our present-day historical moment:  finding ways to recognize and love difference. The attempt to see through eyes that are not your own. To understand that your way of looking at the world is not the only one. To think what it might mean to love those that are not like you. To rejoice in the complexity of things."

I was originally introduced to Helen MacDonald's work through H is for Hawk. I kept reading about the book over a period of time until I finally decided to read it for myself. That book is a poignant journey through grief. Even though I know nothing about hawks or falconing, the emotion of that book resonated through the writing. It spoke to me.

Hence, I was excited to read this book. A "vesper" is an evening prayer. It is a time for contemplation and reflection. Some flights - of the birds - in this book are literal. Others - of thoughts and emotions - are figurative. The title symbolizes what the rest of the book presents - an interplay between philosophy and the natural world.

Vesper Flights is a collection of about 40 essays - some previously published and some new - on a wide variety of topics. In the introduction, the author describes the book as a wunderkammer, a cabinet of curiosity which "held natural and artificial things together on shelves in close conjunction ... The wonder these collections kindled came in part from the ways in which their disparate contents spoke to one another of their similarities and differences in form, their beauties and manifest obscurities." 

My review of this book has unfortunately been impacted by the fact that the version I received is one contiguous block of text. Although the finished book is comprised of a set of essays, the version I received has no divisions or other marking between the essays. As such, it is very challenging - if not impossible - to determine where one ends and the other begins. The quality of this writing is that it combines facts about the natural world with philosophical musings and interpretations about life in general. As such, it is not easy to identify topically where the author intended for the reader to pause and reflect on a unit. I am disappointed.

As with H is for Hawk, the writing is beautiful. I find myself underlining sentences. This book is not shy about making its stance and the author's viewpoints clear - whether on politics, climate change, immigration, the politics of climate change, the relationship between humans and the planet we inhabit, the relationships between humans, and other related topics. A reader's reaction to any particular essay will likely depend on their outlook on that issue. However, knowing who Helen MacDonald is and what she does, would you pick up her book if you were not similarly included? Probably not.

Not only does the book traverse topics, it travels to different parts of the globe, pulling in stories that demonstrate the interconnectedness of us all. Even without any overt statements as to that global connection, the compilation itself makes that point.

I think I will have to start this book over with the proper demarkations. I will keep it on my side table, pick it up and read one essay at time, perhaps in order perhaps randomly, at times when I need to feel that connection and grounding in the natural world.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

The Lions of Fifth Avenue

Title:  The Lions of Fifth Avenue

Author:  Fiona Davis

Publication Information:  Dutton. 2020. 368 pages.

ISBN:  1524744611 / 978-1524744618

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "She had to tell Jack."

Favorite Quote:  "History is made by people in power making decisions, and their notes and writings reveal the decision-making process."

The lions of Fifth Avenue are the two sculptures of lions - Patience and Fortitude - that are found at the entrance to the New York Public Library. The lions were originally names Leo Astor and Leo Lenox after the founders of the library. The new names were given in the 1930s to symbolize the characteristics New Yorkers needed to survive the Depression.

As the title suggests, the book is set in and around the New York Public Library. This aspect is one of the things I have loved about Fiona Davis's books. All of the ones I have read use an iconic New York City building. The books introduce that setting in two time periods and build the stories of two women that in some way link together.

I have enjoyed learning about the buildings and their history although the focus on the building is decreasing with each book that I have read. In some, I have love the stories of both women, and in some, one story is more compelling than the other as is often the case in books with dual timelines.

This book follows the same pattern. The building is the New York Public Library. The times are 1913 and 1993. The women are Laura Lyons and Sadie Donovan.

Laura Lyons lives in an apartment within the library. Her husband is the Library superintendent. She is a wife and a mother to two children. Harry is eleven, and Pearl is seven. For Laura, "time was going by so quickly, and she wanted to do more, be more. The daily chores, the sameness, weighed her down like stones in her pockets. Every day there was yet another dinner to cook, yet another sock to mend." Her story becomes one of feminism and women's rights. Unfortunately, the book chooses to present this as a mutually exclusive choice - career, independence, and ideas vs. home, family, and children. Unfortunately, the book also chooses to introduce an unexpected romance into her story, making her awakening not about independence and equality but a different realization all together.

Sadie is a librarian, recently put in charge of a major collection. She is independent and career focused. However, her thoughts of lack are revealed in repeatedly seeking solace in a book on spinsterhood.

Part of the plot for both women centers on the theft of rare items from the library. Since I love when unrelated books interconnect, I will point out that one of the items stolen in this book is The Tamerlane by Edgar Allen Poe, a book whose history I learned in The Forger's Daughter by Bradford Morrow.

Unfortunately, what really made me the not the reader for this book is the ending. It's hard to say why without a spoiler, but I will attempt to explain. The solution to the mystery of the book thefts in one time period seems unbelievable and in the other is only tangentially related to the main characters. The treatment of the culprits in both scenarios is egregious. Decision made and arguments presented for the abandonment and punishment of the culprits is ridiculous given who the culprits are. Like I said, a cryptic explanation trying not to offer a spoiler.

Unfortunately, for its extremist treatment of a feminist point of view, for its introduction of a romance into what was proceeding to be a story of independence, for its ending, and for the fact the book did not include enough about its historic setting, this book was not for me.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Saving Ruby King

Title:  Saving Ruby King

Author:  Catherine Adel West

Publication Information:  Park Row. 2020. 320 pages.

ISBN:  0778305090 / 978-0778305095

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Ruby wants more than I can give her, but that's how children are."

Favorite Quote:  "'Rebellion even in its smallest forms can eventually birth great change. With change comes hope."

Trigger warning:  This book includes the topics of abuse, murder, violence, domestic violence, and incest.

Southside Chicago. A black community. A church. Two families. Two girls. Ruby and Layla. Best friends.

A murder. An investigation. A community and the police.

This book has the makings of a strong and powerful statement about issues being discussed in the headlines these days. It has the makings of an emotional story of family, loss, and friendship. It has the setup for strong yet vulnerable characters that you want to protect and cheer.

The book does all of that to some extent. However, the telling of the story gets in the way of the story itself, and I find myself lost.

The story begins about two friends - Ruby and Layla. Ruby's mother is murdered, and Ruby is in jeopardy from her abusive father. Layla is the pastor's daughter, but her family has skeletons of its own. The book tries to tell this story from multiple perspectives, past and present. Unfortunately, unless I pay really close attention to the chapter titles and the dates, I find myself lost as to the time frame.

The narrators themselves are interesting for not all are people. There is Ruby, of course and Layla. There are Jackson and Lebanon. Finally, there is Calvary Hope Christian Church. That's right. The church building is a narrator of the story for much happens within those four walls. This is literally a case of "if the walls could talk." Here, the wall not only talk but offer commentary and emotion on the objective events taking place. In addition, there are main characters other than the four human narrators whose stories unfurl within those walls. It's a lot to keep straight.

The connections between the past and the present are not fully explained until the end so it becomes challenging to see the significance of certain names and certain events. In some ways, this book would be easier to read if I had read the ending first. In fact, once the connections are clear, I find myself flipping back through the book to follow the story forward again with the understanding of how the characters and events connect.

This book's attempt to incorporate the issues of racism and the sometimes challenging relationship between the police and the black community also seems out of reach. These issues are sadly very real and need to be talked about and addressed. Unfortunately, in this story, the incorporation of that conversation seems forced and out of place. This is not the story of the investigations into two deaths. It is about the individuals, the families, and the personal relationships that lead to those deaths. Thus, the conversation of racism appears to depict the stereotypes rather than make a real impact.

This book was truly about the generational impact of abuse and how abuse travels through time, turning the abused into the abuser. The story was just told in a nonlinear, noncontiguous way such that the point isn't clear until well into the book. The issues taken up in this book are important, relevant, and considerable. Unfortunately, for most of the book, the emotions and the grasp of those issues seems just out of reach.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Big Girl, Small Town

Title:  Big Girl, Small Town

Author:  Michelle Gallen

Publication Information:  John Murray. 2020. 352 pages.

ISBN:  1529304202 / 978-1529304206

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Majella kept a list of stuff in her heat that she wasn't keen on."

Favorite Quote:  "She liked things straight. But things weren't like that in Aghybogey. It was a town in which there was nowhere to hide, so people hid stuff in plain sight."

***** BLOG TOUR *****

Review

Majella is twenty-seven years old from a small town in Northern Ireland. She lives with her mother, who is an alcoholic. She works as a fast food restaurant with Marty, a married man with whom she sometimes has intimate physical encounters. Her father disappeared. Her brother died when a bomb he was trying to set accidentally went off. Her grandmother has been murdered. Majella is a "big" girl, and a big point is made about this in the book. "Majella had never left Aghybogey ... She'd never gone further than Bundoran on holiday. She was now a Bogey face, someone people expected to see around the town."

The book description makes it clear that this is Majella's story. At the same time, there is a hint that this book touches upon the "troubles" in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, the history remains very much at the periphery of this book, which focuses on Majella's day to day routine. This routine does not vary much. She wears the same cloths, does the same things, eats the same food, and watches the same shows day in and day out.

Unfortunately, Majella is a character I do not engage with and her story is not one I care to follow on for many reasons.

Majella as a character does not change or develop much until the very end, and even that epiphany is not really explained or developed. As such, the book takes on a repetitive tone of who orders what at the restaurant, many of Majella's bodily functions, and such mundane things. The book does not really have a plot so character development would be the key to the story.

Some of the descriptions in the book are graphic and off-putting in the language used and the picture they paint. For example, "Majella knew he was watching her are. The thought of it made her want to twitch her arse checks to take the piss. It also gave her a tingle in her cunt." Eeewww!

Northern Ireland has a dialect and language all its own. It can be musical to listen to. This book, however, tells the entire story in this dialect phonetically written. "What canna get chew?" is a line that repeats often as Majella is a restaurant worker. I assume it translates to, "What can I get you?" The writing gets in the way of the reading. Knowing the setting, I would likely hear the lilt in the voices as I read even if the writing was correct English. I don't need to literally see it in writing. It makes the reading challenging and off-putting. My guess is that this book may be a considerably different experience as an audiobook.

The book description touts the humor in the book. Unfortunately, the humor escapes me. I end the book sad for Majella and glad to walk away from the way in which her story is told.

Many articles on this book indicate that Majella's character is on the autism spectrum, which would explain the repetitive routines. I am delighted to see books start to emerge that focus on differently abled characters. Unfortunately, this connection is never made clear in the book itself and does not compensate for the other off-putting aspects of this story. Sadly, I was completely not the reader for this book.

About the Book

Majella is happiest out of the spotlight, away from her neighbors’ stares and the gossips of the small town in Northern Ireland where she grew up during the Troubles. She lives a quiet life caring for her alcoholic mother, working in the local chip shop, and watching the regular customers come and go. She wears the same clothes each day (overalls, too small), has the same dinner each night (fish and chips, microwaved at home after her shift ends), and binge-watches old DVDs of the same show (Dallas, best show on TV) from the comfort of her bed. But underneath Majella’s seemingly ordinary life are the facts that she doesn’t know where her father is and that every person in her town has been changed by the lingering divide between Protestants and Catholics. When Majella’s seemingly mundane existence is upended by the death of her granny, she comes to realize there may be more to life than the gossips of Aghybogey, the pub, and the chip shop. In fact, there just may be a whole big world outside her small town.

 

About the Author

Michelle Gallen was born in County Tyrone in the mid 1970s and grew up during the Troubles a few miles from the border between what she was told was the "‘Free" State and the "United" Kingdom. She studied English literature at Trinity College Dublin and won several prestigious prizes as a young writer. Following a devastating brain injury in her midtwenties, she co-founded three award-winning companies and won international recognition for digital innovation. She now lives in Dublin with her husband and kids.

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We Came Here to Shine

Title:  We came Here to Shine

Author:  Susie Orman Schnall

Publication Information:  St. Martin's Griffin. 2020. 384 pages.

ISBN:  125016978X / 978-1250169785

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Amid dark clouds and steady rain, hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic visitors turned out to watch as President Roosevelt officially opened the 1939 World's Fair yesterday with a rousing speech promoting 'peace and good-will among all nations.'"

Favorite Quote:  "Chance encounters - seeming coincidences of place and time - were fickle. Sometimes such encounters embodied a chemistry and mind of their own, resulting in relationships the were momentous. And sometimes those encounters had as much energy as a speck of inconsequential dust, meant to be overlooked and immediately forgotten."

"... two modern girls, toiling away at the fair for the summer, planting the seeds of our ambition that will bloom into the career of our dreams." Two different approaches to this same goal:

• "It seems like your biggest problem ... is that you sometimes criticize your inner voice instead of listening to it and letting it guide you to what you really want out of life."
• "It seems like your biggest problem is that you don't want to play by the rules as they exist in your industry or possibly even in life in general. you want to break them all and get to the top before you turn twenty-five."

Vivi and Max are working at the World's Fair much against either of their wills. Vivi is an actress in Hollywood contracted with a studio, and the studio sends her back to New York on loan to be the star of the Aquacade show at the fair. Max is a New York University journalism student whose dream is to work at The New York Times but whose assigned summer internship lands her at Today at the Fair, a daily publication with the daily schedules and articles at the fair.

The background of the World's Fair is fascinating, particularly given the timing. The 1930s was the time of the Depression in the Unites States and the rise of Hitler in Europe. Part of the objective of creating the fair was to give New York an economic and social boost. The fair opened on the 150th anniversary of George Washington's inauguration. This book, however, is not the story of the Depression or the politics or the war.

This is the story of two women and a story behind the scenes at the fair. Vivi is sent to New York to replace an injured actress as Aquabelle Number One in Billy Rose's Aquacade, a music and dance show of over 500 swimmers performed several times a day. Max is assigned to work at the daily fair paper and, because of a manager who does not believe in female journalists, relegated to the task of assembling the daily schedule rather than write actual articles.

A chance meeting introduces the two women to each other and leads to a friendship. The two agree to help each other. "How about I help you become more of a bull in a china shop and you help me stop breaking all the dishes?" Surrounding the two main characters are other strong women - Ruby, Marianne, and Maria - who play their own role in the sisterhood. Surrounding them are the men of the story, some of whom are supportive and some depict the beliefs of the male dominated society at the time. As expected, there are romances, but fortunately the focus remains on the women not the relationships.

The story goes beyond the career choices of these women to include family and one particularly melodramatic plot line. The book makes several references to the historical basis for the author's earlier book The Subway Girls. The time period of that book is considerably longer than this one, but both are the stories of women and the search for independence, equality, and a voice. This story does not introduce anything really unexpected but at the same time does not wrap up the ending into a neat "lived happily ever" package either. I like the ending for it feels real and a stepping point into the next step of life for these women. Overall, a light, quick, and entertaining read.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.