Month: February 2016

Title: The Swans of Fifth Avenue
Author: Melanie Benjamin
Published: January 26, 2016 by Delacorte Press
Pages: 368
Source: Publisher via BEA
Rating: 4/5
Goodreads

Centered on two dynamic, complicated, and compelling protagonists—Truman Capote and Babe Paley—this book is steeped in the glamour and perfumed and smoky atmosphere of New York’s high society. Babe Paley—known for her high-profile marriage to CBS founder William Paley and her ranking in the International Best-Dressed Hall of Fame—was one of the reigning monarchs of New York’s high society in the 1950s. Replete with gossip, scandal, betrayal, and a vibrant cast of real-life supporting characters, readers will be seduced by this startling new look at the infamous society swans.

My review:

Oh how I love a good book about high society, and this one packs a delicious punch! While I certainly have heard of Truman Capote, I admit I haven't read anything written by him (including In Cold Blood....gasp). I need to change that after reading this book. I need to scrounge up a copy of Le Cote Basque 1965, which is the scandalous story written by Capote exposing all the secrets of his beloved friends (his swans). The Swans of Fifth Avenue is a wonderful story, not only about the high society of the 50's and 60's, but a look at the characters lives when they were not in the spotlight. The insecurity of the swans, who knew that their beauty would only last so long. The fact that each of them just wanted to be loved and accepted as a person, not as a famous face. What happens to Truman is perhaps the most shocking, as he goes from loving friend to social pariah. This is a work of historical fiction, so while all events truly did occur, the thoughts and feelings of the people were at the liberty of the author, but I thought she did a wonderful job capturing this story.

One of my favorite quotes that I think does a great job of describing the characters:

Tell me -- What is your greatest fear?

There was a long silence. No sounds but the low hum of the pool filter, the faraway grazing of a lawn mower, and the determined "clip clip" of a gardener on the other side of some tall azalea bushes, trimming away.

"That someone will see," Babe whispered, while at the same time, Truman murmured, "That someone will find me out."

"That no one will love me," Truman added after another moment. While at the same time, Babe admitted, "And that I'll never be loved, truly."

If you love books about rich people and the lives they lead, and how those lives are not always as they seem.......pick this one up. It's fascinating.

I was thrilled to be able to meet Melanie Benjamin and hear her speak about this book, as well as her other notable works.

Title: The Gates of Evangeline
Author: Hester Young
Published: September 1, 2015 by G.P. Putnam's Sons
Pages: 416
Source: Publisher via She Reads book club
Rating: 4/5
Goodreads

When New York journalist and recently bereaved mother Charlotte “Charlie” Cates begins to experience vivid dreams about children she’s sure that she’s lost her mind. Yet these are not the nightmares of a grieving parent, she soon realizes. They are messages and warnings that will help Charlie and the children she sees, if only she can make sense of them.

After a little boy in a boat appears in Charlie’s dreams asking for her help, Charlie finds herself entangled in a thirty-year-old missing-child case that has never ceased to haunt Louisiana’s prestigious Deveau family. Armed with an invitation to Evangeline, the family’s sprawling estate, Charlie heads south, where new friendships and an unlikely romance bring healing. But as she uncovers long-buried secrets of love, money, betrayal, and murder, the facts begin to implicate those she most wants to trust—and her visions reveal an evil closer than she could’ve imagined.

My review:

Color me surprised that I liked this book! This book is my example of how the book blogging world has opened my eyes to appreciate books that I never would have picked up before. This book is considered to be a "gothic mystery", and when I read that there were paranormal visions involved, I filed it under "not my type of book". Then I started reading reviews from bloggers who I trusted, who had led me to lots of great reads, and then this book was picked as one of the She Reads blog network books of winter. Ok, I caved and picked it up. And just like Mikey (in the Life cereal commercials of old), I liked it, I really liked it! It's filled with a little bit of everything. There are the dream visions that the main character sees (truth be told, I still didn't like this part, but I understand how it fits into the story, and it wasn't a huge part of the book, so I'm letting it go). There was a wonderful old Southern manor, and the whole southern culture of the elite and old established families. There was the mystery of what happened to the Deveau baby thirty years ago. There was the great family interactions, especially those with the dying matriarch. There was romance, although that was tempered with deep distrust, which made it all the more interesting. Dead bodies, cover-ups, a mother grieving for her dead son, family secrets, police work, all come together to build a page turner of a novel. The writing was superb, there are plot twists and turns along the way, and best of all this is the first in a trilogy (which I did not know until doing a bit more research about the book).

If you are like me, this will not necessarily be something you would pick up without a recommendation. Consider this your recommendation, I'm looking forward to seeing what Ms. Young comes up with next.

 

Title: The Secret Wisdom of the Earth
Author: Christopher Scotton
Published: January 5, 2016 by Grand Central Publishing
Pages: 496
Source: Publisher
Rating: 3/5
Goodreads

After seeing the death of his younger brother in a terrible home accident, fourteen-year-old Kevin and his grieving mother are sent for the summer to live with Kevin's grandfather. In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky.

Medgar is beset by a massive mountaintop removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin's grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the "company" and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. When Buzzy witnesses a brutal hate crime, a sequence is set in play that tests Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.

Redemptive and emotionally resonant, THE SECRET WISDOM OF THE EARTH is narrated by an adult Kevin looking back on the summer when he sloughed the coverings of a boy and took his first faltering steps as a man. His story is one with a rich cast of characters and an ambitious effort to reclaim a once great community.

My review:

When I first started reading this book, I knew that it was likely going to be a 5 star review from me. The writing was exquisite, the characters were wonderful, the story sucked me in, and I was crying before I'd reached the halfway point! Unfortunately, while the writing remained stellar, shortly after the middle, it took a turn for the worse. Pops, Kevin, and Buzzy take off for a two week trek to an old camp up in the mountains. It turns into a huge adventure story that lasts almost until the end of the book, and despite the writing, I was bored stiff. I should note that adventure stories are not my thing, because I don't want to keep anyone who enjoys them from reading this book. It really was lovely, but I just can't give it a higher rating because of having to slog through 100+ pages of an adventure that seemed almost unbelievable at times. I very much enjoyed the sub plots about the hate crime that occurs in the town, and the fight to stop mountaintop removal. These were both very informative of that time, and very well done.

If you don't mind adventure stories, please pick this one up, I'm sure you will love it. For the rest of you, once they take off for the mountains, I would suggest skimming through this part. Your read will be all the better for it.

 

Title: What Was Mine
Author: Helen Klein Ross
Published: January 5, 2016 by Gallery Books
Pages: 336
Source: Publisher (via She Reads blog network)
Rating: 3/5
Goodreads

Lucy Wakefield is a seemingly ordinary woman who does something extraordinary in a desperate moment: she takes a baby girl from a shopping cart and raises her as her own. It’s a secret she manages to keep for over two decades—from her daughter, the babysitter who helped raise her, family, coworkers, and friends.

When Lucy’s now-grown daughter Mia discovers the devastating truth of her origins, she is overwhelmed by confusion and anger and determines not to speak again to the mother who raised her. She reaches out to her birth mother for a tearful reunion, and Lucy is forced to flee to China to avoid prosecution. What follows is a ripple effect that alters the lives of many and challenges our understanding of the very meaning of motherhood.

Author Helen Klein Ross, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, weaves a powerful story of upheaval and resilience told from the alternating perspectives of Lucy, Mia, Mia’s birth mother, and others intimately involved in the kidnapping. What Was Mine is a compelling tale of motherhood and loss, of grief and hope, and the life-shattering effects of a single, irrevocable moment.

My review:

This is a tough one for me to review because while this book had some very positive things going for it, it never really grabbed me. I should disclose that I am an adoptive mother (the legal way), so I'm not sure if that has bearing on my take or not. First the positives.....I loved the idea behind this book. Who cannot imagine the horror of discovering your child was missing, while at the same time starting to understand the motive of the abductor? This reminded me of a Jodi Picoult novel in that it was told in different perspectives, and you grew to understand the various character's motivations. I also enjoyed the teenage character of Mia, I thought she was well portrayed, and her reactions were spot on. It's a very quick read, and one that you definitely want to get to the end to find out what happens. What I didn't enjoy was the two mothers. I didn't like either of them! I felt that they both tended to let their work get in the way of parenting. The biological mother becomes kind of a kook in the end (which may, but probably wasn't just because of her trauma), and the adoptive mom freaks out when the truth comes out (well, duh). Also, while I liked the differing perspectives, it felt a bit too much like a police record of the account. A lot was a retelling of the past, which may have had something to do with it. In other words, I liked this book, but I didn't love it.

Bottom line, this book is getting rave reviews from many sources, so I think it may have just been me that couldn't entirely warm up to the story. It's definitely worth a look, don't take my word for it.

This book is one of the She Reads blog network books of winter selections. Click the link to find out more.

Title: The Sound of Glass
Author: Karen White
Published: May 12, 2015 by NAL
Pages: 432
Source: Own copy
Rating: 4/5
Goodreads

It has been two years since the death of Merritt Heyward’s husband, Cal, when she receives unexpected news—Cal’s family home in Beaufort, South Carolina, bequeathed by Cal’s reclusive grandmother, now belongs to Merritt.

Charting the course of an uncertain life—and feeling guilt from her husband’s tragic death—Merritt travels from her home in Maine to Beaufort, where the secrets of Cal’s unspoken-of past reside among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the Bluff. This unknown legacy, now Merritt’s, will change and define her as she navigates her new life—a new life complicated by the arrival of her too young stepmother and ten-year-old half-brother.

Soon, in this house of strangers, Merritt is forced into unraveling the Heyward family past as she faces her own fears and finds the healing she needs in the salt air of the Low Country.

My review:

I recently listened to another Karen White book on audio, and while I did enjoy it, I found this one to be so much more substantial! White is a wonderful storyteller, who creates visions in her books that you feel that you could just step into. You are absorbed into the story and carried along with the characters. This book was not all southern sweetness though. It starts with a horrific plane crash that one character spends a lifetime reliving. It also speaks to the issue of domestic violence, in this case the type that is handed down from generation to generation. Along with what you are probably thinking is all doom and gloom, there are many bright spots of beauty within the pages. From the beautiful wind chimes and the amazingly real dioramas created by the matriarch of Heyward house, to the life prophecies and advice in her Journal of Truths written by Merritt's stepmother. There were many great characters in this book, one of my favorites being Merritt's ten year old stepbrother. There is a mystery mired within the pages, which was fulfilling once it was revealed, but lordy it took forever to get to 🙂 I especially liked that while there was romance, it was not a focus of the book.

A truly good read, with a great emphasis on domestic violence, and an overall theme of forgiveness.

Title: The Edge of Lost
Author: Kristina McMorris
Published: November 24, 2015 by Kensington
Pages: 340
Source: Publisher via SheReads blog network
Rating: 4.5/5
Goodreads

On a cold night in October 1937, searchlights cut through the darkness around Alcatraz. A prison guard’s only daughter—one of the youngest civilians who lives on the island—has gone missing. Tending the warden’s greenhouse, convicted bank robber Tommy Capello waits anxiously. Only he knows the truth about the little girl’s whereabouts, and that both of their lives depend on the search’s outcome.

Almost two decades earlier and thousands of miles away, a young boy named Shanley Keagan ekes out a living as an aspiring vaudevillian in Dublin pubs. Talented and shrewd, Shan dreams of shedding his dingy existence and finding his real father in America. The chance finally comes to cross the Atlantic, but when tragedy strikes, Shan must summon all his ingenuity to forge a new life in a volatile and foreign world.

Skillfully weaving these two stories, Kristina McMorris delivers a compelling novel that moves from Ireland to New York to San Francisco Bay. As her finely crafted characters discover the true nature of loyalty, sacrifice, and betrayal, they are forced to confront the lies we tell—and believe—in order to survive.

My review:

What a wonderful read! At the very beginning we get a snippet of information from 1937 Alcatraz. Then the story jumps back many years and we follow the life of Shanley Keagan first in Dublin, then in America. It's obvious early on how the two stories will likely intersect, but it's how they come together that gives such a wonderful, completely immersible story. I loved Shan, and he was such a great character to root for. There were secondary characters that were also well drawn, some are likable, some not. The last third of the book is completely an edge of your seat, can't turn the pages fast enough, read. The only thing that niggled at me just a bit was at the end when a person from the past reappears in a slightly unbelievable way, but it by no means dampened my enthusiasm for this book! The main theme I got from this book was that sometimes good people get caught up in bad situations, and second chances are a necessary option.

I highly recommend this book, but be sure you have a good chunk of time laid out to read it, because you won't want to put this compelling story down.

This book is one of the Winter selections for the She Reads blog network. Click on the images in my sidebar to learn more about them.

Title: The Other Daughter
Author: Lauren Willig
Published: July 21, 2015 by St. Martin's Press
Pages: 304
Source: Own copy
Rating: 3.5/5
Goodreads

Raised in a poor yet genteel household, Rachel Woodley is working in France as a governess when she receives news that her mother has died, suddenly. Grief-stricken, she returns to the small town in England where she was raised to clear out the cottage...and finds a cutting from a London society magazine, with a photograph of her supposedly deceased father dated all of three month before. He's an earl, respected and influential, and he is standing with another daughter-his legitimate daughter. Which makes Rachel...not legitimate. Everything she thought she knew about herself and her past-even her very name-is a lie.

Still reeling from the death of her mother, and furious at this betrayal, Rachel sets herself up in London under a new identity. There she insinuates herself into the party-going crowd of Bright Young Things, with a steely determination to unveil her father's perfidy and bring his-and her half-sister's-charmed world crashing down. Very soon, however, Rachel faces two unexpected snags: she finds she genuinely likes her half-sister, Olivia, whose situation isn't as simple it appears; and she might just be falling for her sister's fiancé...

My review:

I was attracted to this book because of the plot. Finding out your father is really not dead and is an earl with another daughter......oooh, I'm totally on board with how this one plays out. While I can't say that it's one of my favorite historical fiction novels, I did generally enjoy the story. The author had a great grasp for the historical elements of the roaring twenties, and her descriptions of the parties, clothing, and jazz era were spot on. I enjoyed the plotting of Rachel to uncover her father, especially her response once she meets him. I liked the development of the legitimate daughter Olivia, and the growing relationship between the two "sisters". Simon was another great character who probably could have been even more developed. I wish that some of the other minor characters had been a bit more fleshed out, they were kind of dropped into the story, but then never resolved before they dropped back out, particularly Cece. There was romance in the book, but it was not so significant as to take over, which I was grateful for. The story stood well enough on its own without having to add romance into it.

Overall a great story with an interesting plot. You will particularly like it if you enjoy that time period.