The Husbands: A Novel by Holly Gramazio #AudiobookReview #HumorousFiction&Satire

Best Books of the Year So Far 2024

Book Blurb:

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?

My Review:

When was the last time you willingly accepted a debut novel and actually enjoyed it? Well, okay, maybe not that rare, but this is one I think you might.

First, this is a unique plot device and one that has you nodding your head and grinning. Definitely light satire, humorous and chuckle worthy moments begin when Lauren discovers a husband in her flat in London that was a real surprise. She wasn’t married.

Her friends, and there are several constants, confirm they’ve been married for a little while. Just look at the photos. Decoŕ definitely looks different.

Well, the good news: She hasn’t gone crazy but when he changes a lightbulb in the attic, Michael is replaced by a new husband. Maybe she needs to reconsider the crazy part.

And then, OMG, she runs the gamut! Right age and education but dense. Bore you to tears but the body of Adonis. Health nut, gamer, sports nut, gambler, drinker, wondering eye. What if she found the one she wanted to keep? Could she keep him out of the attic?

It’s light-hearted and not to be taken seriously although there are a few interesting philosophical questions to ponder. The MC is not fully developed, the reader doesn’t get the depth and certainly of none of the husbands. The attic is apparently “magic.” We don’t know why. There is a solid twist later in the novel but at a reasonable length of time you’ll demand a point to it all.

Of course, I greatly enjoyed the narration of the audiobook—done very well, accents and all. Does Lauren finally pick a husband, warts and all, and stick with him? Do you still care? How does this ring road ever end? You’ll have to read it.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Humorous Fiction & Satire, Humorous Fiction, Family Life Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B0CDCP4FCT
Listening Length: 10 hrs 30 mins
Narrator: Miranda Raison
Publication Date: April 2, 2024
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: The Husbands [Amazon-US]
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: HOLLY GRAMAZIO is a writer, game designer and curator from Adelaide, currently based in London. She founded the experimental games festival Now Play This, and wrote the script for the award-winning indie videogame Dicey Dungeons. She’s particularly interested in rules, play, cities, gardens, games that get people acting creatively, and art that gets people interacting with their surroundings in new ways. The Husbands is her first novel.

Happy Thursday!

Closer than you think: A Mags Munroe Story by Jean Grainger

Book Blurb:

Mags Munroe is juggling a lot. A Gen Z new Garda recruit who lectures everyone on political correctness, teenage daughters who are determined to fill the house with unruly animals, a mother-in-law that is not improving with age, and a husband with a loud new hobby.

So, when an eccentric old couple move to Ballycarrick, claiming to be a witch and a warlock, she thinks why not? What harm could they do? But their presence is fascinating some and infuriating others, and both sides want her involved.

Her husband’s old girlfriend is back in town, and the rumour mill starts turning, and relationships Mags has relied on all her life seem suddenly precarious.

Just when she’s at boiling point, she finds herself faced with a professional situation so unlikely it’s almost laughable, but as things unfold, what seemed like a joke is no longer funny, as sinister influences take a keen interest in Ballycarrick, but why?

My Review:

There’s always a lot going on in the little village of Ballycarrick, Cork, Ireland. Mags Munroe, the Garda Chief and her husband Kieran must juggle not only the local station and a new recruit, but keep a guarded eye over her own daughters, the local townspeople, and his ex.

The author has that special blarney gift for spinning tales and this series is particularly endearing with the description of the countryside, its people (which includes a population of Travellers), an ex of Kieran’s, and on a more serious note possible espionage.

Also in this installment is the unusual introduction of a witch and warlock, rapidly disconcerting to the Travellers as fakes. Although some of the locals are smitten, Mags remains skeptical and consults her favorite Traveller guide for insight.

Easy to engage in a Mags Munroe, never a dull moment, and I love the kind and compassionate way she deals with people. Mags never shies away from following the leads where they take her—which has gotten her in a lot of trouble before and does so again.

These are generally fast, easy, and fun reads. Her family quickly become familiar friends and the plots are generally more complex than would seem on the surface. Usually satisfied in the conclusion, each can be read as a standalone, but as this is Book 4 of this series you may wish to start back at Book 1.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the author that in no way influenced this review. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Rating: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Family Life Fiction, Saga Fiction, Family Saga Fiction
ASIN: B0CPH2HBGW
Print Length: 274 pages
Publication Date: April 24, 2024
Source: Author

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: JEAN GRAINGER USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

SELECTED BY BOOKBUB READERS IN TOP 19 OF HISTORICAL FICTION BOOKS

WINNER OF THE 2016 AUTHOR’S CIRCLE HISTORICAL NOVEL OF EXCELLENCE

‘Warm and wise, reading a Jean Grainger novel is like sitting in the kitchen of a friend. Her authentic writing welcomes you into the heart of Ireland.’ Kate Kerrigan, NYT Bestselling Author.

‘In the same magical tradition as classic Irish storytellers, Maeve Binchy and Frank McCourt, Jean Grainger transports the reader into a world where the characters not only come alive, but become friends, who stay with you long after you’ve closed the last page. I have no doubt that Jean Grainger will be considered one of the finest historical novelists of our time.’ Roberta Kagan, Bestselling author of ‘All My Love, Detrick’ series.

Hello and thanks for taking time out to check out my page. If you’re wondering what you’re getting with my books, then think of the late great Maeve Binchy but sometimes with an historical twist. I was born in Cork, Ireland in 1971 and I come from a large family of storytellers, so much so that we had to have ‘The Talking Spoon’, only the person holding the spoon could talk!

I have worked as a history lecturer at University, a teacher of English, History and Drama in secondary school, a playwright, and a tour guide of my beloved Ireland. I am married to the lovely Diarmuid and we have four children. We live in a 200 year old stone cottage in Mid-Cork with my family and the world’s smallest dogs, called Scrappy and Scoobi..

My experiences leading groups, mainly from the United States, led me to write my first novel, ‘The Tour’. My observances of the often funny, sometimes sad but always interesting events on tours fascinated me. People really did confide the most extraordinary things, the safety of strangers I suppose. It’s a fictional story set on a tour bus but many of the characters are based on people I met over the years. Little was I to know that it would end up as a six-book series.

My first World War 2 novel, ‘So Much Owed’ is a family saga based in Ireland following the Buckley family of Dunderrig House. The story opens in the trenches of WW1 at the end of the war and moves to tranquil West Cork. As the next generation of the Buckley family find themselves embroiled once again in war, the action moves from Ireland to wartime Belfast, from occupied France to the inner sanctum of German society in neutral Dublin. The history of the period was my academic specialty so I’m delighted to be able to use it in a work of fiction.

Shadow of a Century is set in New York in 2015 as well as in Dublin during the events of Easter Week 1916, where Irish men and women fought valiantly to rid our island of British imperialism. While not my academic specialty, I loved researching this book. It’s essentially a love story, but with a bit of intrigue thrown in for good measure.

Under Heaven’s Shining Stars was published in 2016 and is set in my home city of Cork. This time it’s against the backdrop of 1950s and 60s Ireland and it really is a book about friendship, family and the Catholic church. I have a deep personal affinity with all of my characters but this book is especially close to my heart.

A book I wrote while travelling with my family for a year in Australia is called Sisters of the Southern Cross, and don’t forget to read the afterword on that one as to how that story came about – it’s a tale stranger than fiction in its own right!

I wrote a novel called Letters of Freedom after hearing a woman on the radio one day explaining how being raised in state care prepared a person so poorly for the realities of independent living. Her story was so moving I was inspired to write a short novella there and then.

Carmel’s story really seemed to touch people, and I got such a huge reaction from readers all over the world, many of them telling me the most extraordinary stories from their own lives, that I wrote a sequel. The Future’s Not Ours To See follows Carmel as she ventures forth into a world she knows so little of is. The third Carmel and Sharif book, What Will be, is also available and it finishes the story of this woman who spent her entire childhood believing something that wasn’t true. She returns to Ireland, very reluctantly and discovers that in order to go forward she has to first make peace with her past.

My next series, The Robinswood Story, opens with What Once Was True, and tells the story of a big old house in Co Waterford during WW2. Two families live there, the impoverished Keneficks who own it and the hard-working Murphys who work for them. The sequel to this, Return to Robinswood, continues the story, and the final instalment, Trials and Tribulations, takes it to its conclusion.

The Star and the Shamrock, the Emerald Horizon, The Hard Way Home and The World Starts Anew is a series of four books about two little German Jewish children who find themselves on the Kindertransport out of Berlin. They end up in Northern Ireland, and it was a real labour of love. The research was harrowing at times, but I hope I’ve done justice to the stories of so many children who escaped the Nazi terror, often never again to see their parents. This is a book of hope in dark times, of the enduring power of love and the incredible resilience of the human spirit.

Another series, The Queenstown Series, centres on twelve year old Harp Devereaux and her mother Rose, and the first book, Last Port of Call, opens on the day Titanic sails from Queenstown, Co Cork on her last fateful journey. It is a bestselling series and people really seem to connect to the precocious Harp and her hard-working mother as they battle to survive in a society where conforming and playing by the rules was paramount. It is a four-book series, The West’s Awake, The Harp and the Rose and Roaring Liberty completing the set.

Many of the people who have reviewed my books have said that you get to know the characters and really become attached to them. That’s wonderful for me to hear because that’s how I feel about them too. I grew up on Maeve Binchy and Deirdre Purcell and I aspired to being like them. If you buy one of my books, I’m very grateful and I really hope you enjoy it. If you do, or even if you don’t, please take the time to post a review. Writing is a source of constant contentment to me and I am so fortunate to have the time and the inclination to do it, but to read a review written by a reader really does make my day.

#TuesdayBookBlog

Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris – #Audiobook Review – #TBT

Teachers’ pick

Book Blurb:

A picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes the story behind the picture is worth a thousand more.

2 CHILDREN FOR SALE.

In 1931, near Philadelphia, ambitious reporter Ellis Reed photographs the gut-wrenching sign posted beside a pair of siblings on a farmhouse porch. With the help of newspaper secretary Lily Palmer, Ellis writes an article to accompany the photo. Capturing the hardships of American families during the Great Depression, the feature story generates national attention and Ellis’s career skyrockets.

But the piece also leads to consequences more devastating than he and Lily ever imagined – and it will risk everything they value to unravel the mystery and set things right.

Inspired by a newspaper photo that stunned readers throughout the country, Sold on a Monday is a powerful novel of ambition, redemption, love, and family.

My Review:

Okay, if you want to cry foul, I’ll understand. It’s not fair to come in third or fourth on the same theme and be discounted because it’s become so familiar. I get it.

And really, when the CE read The Ways We Hide last year, he loved the writing style and the storyline (historical fiction but not this premise).

The narrative begins with a sign that journalist Ellis Reed comes across in his search for a story. He takes a picture of two children on a porch with a for sale next to them. Then he doesn’t think too much more about it until Lillian Palmer working for the same newspaper sees the photo and it grabs her. She has a four-year-old herself, and single and struggling, can identify the heartbreak that must have ensued with the decision.

Lillian shows the picture to their editor who feels it could be built into a good topical story—it’s 1931 after all—and everyone can speak to the desperation the Great Depression has spawned. The problem is, the photo is destroyed. It’s the quest for getting another shot of the kids that starts the whole ball rolling with the discovery that the kids are gone. Sold?

I was listening to the audiobook. The plot was familiar and the pace was slowed somewhat by the relationship between Ellis and Lillian. While they pursued the whereabouts of the children, they made a few gut-wrenching discoveries, something all too true at the time. (Guess I could identify just a little here as my own mother was taken to an orphanage when my grandparents found themselves unable to care for two young girls. My mother’s experience was one that left her a bit embittered the rest of her life.)

I confess there were times when I felt more of an emotional connection than others regarding the children, but never really did fully engage with either the male or female MCs. As usual, I felt the romance in some part let down the main thrust of the story. Who were the kids? What happened to their mother? Where did the kids go? Not so young they didn’t remember their circumstances—how are they coping?

The author does paint a circumspect picture of life during those depression years. There were some interesting support characters and for the most part a good ebb and flow of tempo. The conclusion pulled most strings together and provided a happy resolution for the budding couple.

This novel was a book club choice for the quarter. I didn’t tie it to the review the CE wrote last year at first, although it was apparent from the blurb that it would mirror Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours and Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds both of which I loved.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library for the club read. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Mysteries, Family Life Fiction, Literary Fiction
Publisher: Recorded Books
ISBN-10: ‎ 1492663999
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1492663997
ASIN: B07GL3G1DX
Listening Length: 9 hrs 48 mins
Narrator: Brian Hutchison
Publication Date: August 28, 2018
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Sold on a Monday [Amazon]

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

The Author: KRISTINA MCMORRIS is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of two novellas and six historical novels, including the million-copy bestseller SOLD ON A MONDAY. The recipient of more than twenty national literary awards, she previously hosted weekly TV shows for Warner Bros. and an ABC affiliate, beginning at age nine with an Emmy Award-winning program, and owned a wedding-and-event-planning company until she had far surpassed her limit of “Y.M.C.A.” and chicken dances. Kristina lives near Portland, Oregon, where she somehow manages to be fully deficient of a green thumb and not own a single umbrella. For more, visit KristinaMcMorris.com.

Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris

The Storyteller’s Death by Ann Dávila Cardinal- #AudiobookReview – #bookclubs – #TBT

Book Blurb:

From International Latino Book Award-winning author Ann Dávila Cardinal comes a gorgeously written family saga about a Puerto Rican woman who finds herself gifted (or cursed?) with a strange ability.

There was always an old woman dying in the back room of her family’s house when Isla was a child…

Isla Larsen Sanchez’s life begins to unravel when her father passes away. Instead of being comforted at home in New Jersey, her mother starts leaving her in Puerto Rico with her grandmother and great-aunt each summer like a piece of forgotten luggage.

When Isla turns eighteen, her grandmother, a great storyteller, dies. It is then that Isla discovers she has a gift passed down through her family’s cuentistas. The tales of dead family storytellers are brought back to life, replaying themselves over and over in front of her.

At first, Isla is enchanted by this connection to the Sanchez cuentistas. But when Isla has a vision of an old murder mystery, she realizes that if she can’t solve it to make the loop end, these seemingly harmless stories could cost Isla her life.

My Review:

I wanted to like this book. It was the selection from the book club for the quarter. They go for an eclectic selection of books—those I would probably not read on my own—this being one.

Usually, if I can find an audiobook for the book club selection, I’ll choose that over reading it. I’m glad I did this time as well, the narration did help, with a couple exceptions.

I loved the main character’s name, Isla. I thought very pretty right up until one of her aunt’s drew it out in exaggerated pronunciation for the umpteenth time in that high-pitched irritating voice.

Isla Sanchez is sent to Puerto Rico every summer where she develops a strong bond with her great aunt. Her mother is an alcoholic and does not get along with her mother who cares for Isla.

But her grandmother passes away when Isla turns 18 and it quickly appears that she has imparted a gift of visions to Isla. Unfortunately, not all of the visions are benign and involve her beloved great aunt.

As the visions progress from alarming to dangerous, she realizes that the mystery of the murder must be solved. It never felt, however, that she was really in mortal danger.

I must admit that my attention wandered from time to time and like a petulant teenager who “tunes out” I did so with parts of the storyline I felt lagging or redundant. I enjoyed info bits about Puerto Rico, the customs, the foods, and celebrations. But part of my problem is that Isla comes from an entitled family—money—class—land, an irksome trope. And she becomes aware of that class distinction when she meets José.

While I enjoyed the storyteller aspect of the plot, her investigation successes came quickly, always seeking and easily finding the person who would supply that part of the information. No tension or suspense. Her time is her own, she has the money and resources to go where and when she wants. It’s all too easy.

There is a twist at the conclusion that did come as a surprise. Still, I’m a little underwhelmed with this one.

I listened to a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Magical Realism Fiction, Coming of Age Fiction, Family Life Fiction
Publisher: Recorded Books
ISBN-10: ‎ 1728250773
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1728250779
ASIN: B0B5JPP7D4
Listening Length: 9 hrs 48 mins
Narrator: Marisol Ramirez
Publication Date: October 4, 2022
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Storyteller’s Death [Amazon]

Rosepoint Publishing: Three Point Five Stars

The Author: Ann Dávila Cardinal is an International Latino Book Award winning novelist and aging tattooed punk. Her first young adult horror novel Five Midnights, was released by Tor Teen (2019), as was the sequel, Category Five (2020). Her adult debut, the novel The Storyteller’s Death, was released by Sourcebooks and is a finalist for the Vermont Book Awards for 2022. Her next magical realist adult novel, We Need No Wings, will be released from Sourcebooks in October 2024. Her young adult, horror rom-com, Breakup From Hell, came out from HarperTeen in January of 2023.

Five Midnights won an AudioFile Earphones Award, an International Latino Book Award 2020, and was a finalist for a Bram Stoker Award. Category Five was a finalist for the 2021 International Latino Book Award. The Storyteller’s Death is a finalist for the Vermont Book Award.

Her stories have appeared in a number of anthologies, including Our Shadows Have Claws (2022), Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology (2022), Lockdown: Stories of Crime, Terror, and Hope During a Pandemic (2020); and Women Writing the Weird (2012) and she contributed to the Encyclopedia Latina: History, Culture, And Society in the United States edited by Ilan Stavans.

Ann lives in Vermont, needle-felts tiny reading creatures, and prepares for the zombie apocalypse.

Have a great week!

A Week in Summer-A Short Story by Maeve Binchy- #Audiobook Review – #FictionShortStories – #audiobook – #TuesdayBookBlog

Book Blurb:

After many happy years of marriage and raising a family, Brian and Kathleen suddenly find themselves a bit lost in life. Midwesterners who’ve never traveled, Kathleen decides that what she and Brian need is a vacation, and with the help of an enthusiastic travel agent she plans a trip to Ireland in search of her roots. In beautiful, quaint Lisdoonvarna, to the couple’s surprise, they find themselves in the midst of a joyous yearly gathering dedicated to celebrating the life and work of a late Irish poet, and they rediscover something much more important than evidence of long-dead ancestors: their love for each other and for life itself.

My Review:

Either read (29 pages) or listened to (33 minutes), this short story is so short I’m not really sure we actually get a story. Don’t blink or you’ll miss the whole thing.

My one experience with this author was back in 2020 for #ReadingIrelandMonth20 when the CE and I co-read A Week in Winter. You can’t compare a 418 page novel with a 33 minute audiobook. He loved the former—I balked—and this is apples and oranges so you can’t compare the writing style of the two.

Brian and Kathleen after years of marriage have found themselves at an unhappy crossroads. When Brian’s job leaves him high, dry, and despondent, she decides they need a vacation and researching choose the land of her ancestors. She books a week in Lisdoonvarna where, coincidentally, they are celebrating the work of a late, great Irish poet.

While my heart goes out to Kathleen, I didn’t care at all for Brian. Given his lack of interest in anything, I wasn’t sure how she convinced him to go on the trip. Perhaps Brian wasn’t given enough development, the effort having gone to Kathleen, but he remained an enigma and I never warmed up to him.

Kathleen loves her husband, tries very hard to put some spark back into their marriage. Brian, who’s never been one to do much of anything fun, suddenly participates in various activities, joining the celebration. And what happens in the conclusion leaves me scratching my head.

Huh? I was shocked! She is willing to accept this Brian. I was thinking perhaps he was in need of a psychologist.

So, no, not wholly thrilled with this one either. I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Fiction Short Stories, Family Life Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B004Z902DC
Listening Length: 33 mins
Narrator: Maeve Binchy
Publication Date: May 4, 2011
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: A Week in Summer [Amazon]

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

The Author: Maeve Binchy was born in County Dublin and educated at the Holy Child convent in Killiney and at University College, Dublin. After a spell as a teacher she joined the IRISH TIMES. Her first novel, LIGHT A PENNY CANDLE, was published in 1982 and she went on to write over twenty books, all of them bestsellers. Several have been adapted for cinema and television, including TARA ROAD. Maeve Binchy received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the British Book Awards in 1999 and the Irish PEN/A.T. Cross award in 2007. In 2010 she was presented with the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bord Gáis Irish Book Awards by the President of Ireland. She was married to the writer and broadcaster Gordon Snell for 35 years, and died in 2012.

#TuesdayBookBlog

The Dutch House: A Novel by Ann Patchett – #Audiobook Review – narrated by Tom Hanks – #ThrowbackThursday

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

Best Literature & Fiction

Book Blurb:

Ann Patchett, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Commonwealth, delivers her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love, and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves, and of who we really are.

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

My Review:

Okay, yes you got me! I enjoyed this book in no small part because the audiobook is narrated by Tom Hanks. Hanks literally becomes Danny, the main character but still never veers too far from that Academy-winning rad-da-tat animated delivery. I had to check the speed as there was more than once I thought I might have set it to 125% of normal. Gees, he’s good, and thank heaven or this could have become a rather slow burn at times.

As revealed by the blurb, Danny and his sister Maeve (7 years older) are kicked out of their very wealthy and lavish estate by their wicked step-mom after his father passes suddenly intestate. I may have been washing dishes at that point and missed how old the kids were at that point, but it was literally a case of rags to riches back to rags. They’d enjoyed the good life and then it ended.

So, Danny, always looked after by his big sister, may be the typical clueless male. I thought there were times he swerved into narcissism, while his stoic sister Maeve never takes her eyes off the ball. There were also times I wanted to slap him upside his head! Maeve has settled into a comfortable living but will not settle unless Danny does the same and using the one loophole their step-mother failed to see, she pushes him to higher learning. GO! Be a doctor! Dutifully, he does, all the while declaring he will never practice. (Thank heavens as his bedside manner would suck.)

What he does practice, wisely, is real estate. Hey, he had gleaned some knowledge from his father. Yes, and then because that was expected, a wife. But Danny, perhaps again mirroring his dad with his step-mother, marries a woman he really does not love. I doubt there would ever have been a woman who could take Maeve’s place. That is a sibling bond born of desperation and survival.

Through the decades this narrative covers, each, together and separately, go back to The Dutch House to see how it is faring. Amazingly well, as it turns out, although the same cannot be said of Andrea, the step-mom. It’s a great, hulking enormous estate, still oozing the original (Dutch) owners’ vibrations—a reason their mother fled after they moved in to go serve the poor where she felt she really belonged.

Heavy family dynamics, feelings of abandonment, sibling loyalty, loss, the characters well developed and, typically, 180 degrees in dreams and thought processes. Times I ached for Maeve, angry with Danny. The step-mom painted with all the warts of the stereotypical step-parent.

As always with an extremely successful novel, there are detractors, but this is a Pulitzer Prize finalist. And performed by Tom Hanks, I’d also bestow an honorary Audie. He is awesome.

I received a complimentary audiobook copy from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Recommended-5 Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Coming of Age Fiction, Family Life Fiction, Literary Fiction
Publisher: HarperAudio
ASIN: B07NSJZWY5
Listening Length: 9 hrs 53 mins
Narrator: Tom Hanks
Publication Date: September 24, 2019
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Dutch House [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author:

Ann Patchett is the author of six novels, including Bel Canto, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction. She writes for the New York Times Magazine, Elle, GQ, the Financial Times, the Paris Review and Vogue. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

New York Times best seller | A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick | A New York Times Book Review Notable Book | Time Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2019 | 2020 Audie finalist – audiobook of the year and best male narrator

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, The Washington Post; O: The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Vogue, Refinery29, and Buzzfeed

The Narrator:

Tom Hanks – Narrating this heartbreaking and compelling story is not the first connection between Patchett and Hanks. Patchett, the New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and State of Wonder, told the Associated Press that she and Hanks have become friends in recent years. Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, have spent time with Patchett at Parnassus Books, the renowned bookstore she owns in Nashville, Tennessee. And in 2017, Patchett joined Hanks at a sold-out event sponsored by the Washington, D.C., bookstore Politics and Prose to interview him in conjunction with his promotion of Uncommon Type, his own collection of short stories.

[Info and photo attribute: BookBub]

#ThrowbackThursday

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub – #Audiobook Review – #timetravel

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

Best Books of 2022 So Far

Book Blurb:

With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes, and a different kind of love story.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it’s her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?

My Review:

Okay, I’m definitely not the right demographic for this book. Besides being a much older generation, I couldn’t identify with the intensity of the retrospection with her father, not having one myself that I noticed his passing. And, sorry, I’m not a monster city fan.

As it’s been out now for several months and it’s been a fav, accruing a lot of notice and positive reviews, everyone knows it’s about a time-traveling woman who leaves a forty-year-old body having over-partied into oblivion to discover herself again at sixteen. UGH! Those teen years—no thank you. However, I am a fan of the time traveler genre. In this case, back and forth to the same time, 1996, and the relationship with her single-parent father.

Having said the above, you’ll possibly understand why I thought the first part of the book was relatively slow and difficult for me to engage as it set up the characters, the current atmosphere, and the stressful situation with her dying father.

I enjoyed her first travel experience and again when she figured out how to move freely between the times. I found the pace, and my interest, accelerated somewhat in the middle of the book when she began to explore the question of whether or not there was any way to change any outcomes. More importantly, would she?

Lots of retrospective discussions, reliving the grand old 1990s, heavy nostalgic memories. Gees, it’s almost depressing, interesting heavy-handed author writing style prose but the conclusion came well-plotted and satisfying.

So many time travel novels end in the trope of “do-overs.” I also wrote about that back in 2015. The fork in the road. What if…I’d gone left instead of right. Isn’t this something all of us have mused over? The novel charges the reader to look at what we have now—enjoy it or make the changes–particularly for those whom we love.

I received a complimentary review copy of this audiobook from the publisher and NetGalley. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Time Travel Science Fiction, Time Travel Fiction, Family Life Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Audio
ASIN: B09HST51ZG
Listening Length: 8 hrs 31 mins
Narrator: Marin Ireland
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: This Time Tomorrow [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

The Author: Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of five novels—This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures—and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her books have been published in more than 20 languages, and All Adults Here is currently in development as a television series. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.

book shelves

TV Netflix Series Firefly Lane vs #Audiobook Fly Away by Kristen Hannah and Susan Ericksen (Narrator) – Family Life Fiction – #TBT

Somewhere in my travels through buddy blogs or Netflix ads, I noticed the novel Firefire Lane and that the book had been picked up for a Netflix original series. I must admit to loving the challenge of listening to the audiobook and then making a mild comparison to the Netflix version. In the past I’ve noticed a radical departure from the original books (not quite so much with Longmire, but seriously rewritten in the Virgin River series).

The storyline by Kristen Hannah in Firefly Lane (Book 1) is about Kate Mularkey, who in the summer of 1974 meets Tully Hart. Kate is in the eighth grade and a doomed bottom feeder whereas Tully is “the coolest girl in the world.” But Tully lives a tenuous life with an addicted and aging flower child and she quickly assimilates into Kate’s family. The ensuing well-paced narrative chronicles the friendship, the bond between the girls through thirty years and several life changes.

Netflix Series

Firefly Lane follows Tully played by Katherine Heigl and Kate played by Sarah Chalke through their coming of age, young adulthood, and the rise of each in their chosen life path. They are BFFs, supporting each other through both the good times and bad into their 40s.

There are ten episodes in Season 1 with Season 2 promised some time in 2022. The actors, both the youths and adults, do an incredible job of selling their characters.

Katherine Marie Heigl (born November 24, 1978) is an American actress, producer and former fashion model. She started her career as a child model. Heigl and her husband of 13 years — the singer Josh Kelley — have a 4-year-old son together, Joshua Bishop Kelley, Jr. They adopted their daughter Nancy Leigh, 12, from South Korea in 2009 and Adalaide, 8, who is Black, in 2012. [Wikipedia] She may best be known for her role in Grey’s Anatomy.

Sarah Louise Christine Chalke born August 27, 1976) is a Canadian actress and model. She is known for portraying Elliot Reid on the NBC/ABC comedy series Scrubs. Chalke is engaged to lawyer Jamie Afifi. The couple have a son, Charlie Rhodes, and a daughter, Frances. Her son was diagnosed at age two with Kawasaki disease. [Wikipedia]

My Thoughts

I love finally having female buddy films that women can identify with, enjoy. Of course, Thelma and Louise made some waves when it came out, but I don’t remember seeing a number of similar cinema offerings after. A League of Their Own? (“There’s no crying in baseball.”) First Wives Club? Not sure this isn’t apples and oranges and you no doubt can cite better or more current examples.

In this case, the often bawdy Netflix theme offers adult entertainment from violence and drug abuse to nudity and sex scenes. If that’s not offensive, then behind the restricted content comes the beautiful story of a powerful friendship that manages to survive jealousy, anger, triumphs, and betrayals. Life is a struggle, but the friendship and connection prevails.

Really, if you haven’t discovered this one yet, I recommend the series. Engaging, well-developed and portrayed characters. So far, a “feel good” series, although I understand that changes. 5 stars

Audiobook (Blurb)

The number one New York Times best-selling author returns to the characters in Firefly Lane in her next blockbuster novel, Fly Away. Once, a long time ago, I walked down a night-darkened road called Firefly Lane, all alone, on the worst night of my life, and I found a kindred spirit. That was our beginning. More than 30 years ago. TullyandKate. You and me against the world. Best friends forever.

But stories end, don’t they? You lose the people you love and you have to find a way to go on…Tully Hart has always been larger than life, a woman fueled by big dreams and driven by memories of a painful past. She thinks she can overcome anything until her best friend, Kate Ryan, dies. Tully tries to fulfill her deathbed promise to Kate – to be there for Kate’s children – but Tully knows nothing about family or motherhood or taking care of people. Sixteen-year-old Marah Ryan is devastated by her mother’s death. Her father, Johnny, strives to hold the family together, but even with his best efforts, Marah becomes unreachable in her grief. Nothing and no one seems to matter to her…until she falls in love with a young man who makes her smile again and leads her into his dangerous, shadowy world.

Dorothy Hart – the woman who once called herself Cloud – is at the center of Tully’s tragic past. She repeatedly abandoned her daughter, Tully, as a child, but now she comes back, drawn to her daughter’s side at a time when Tully is most alone. At long last, Dorothy must face her darkest fear: Only by revealing the ugly secrets of her past can she hope to become the mother her daughter needs.

A single, tragic choice and a middle-of-the-night phone call will bring these women together and set them on a poignant, powerful journey of redemption. Each has lost her way, and they will need each one another – and maybe a miracle – to transform their lives.

An emotionally complex, heart-wrenching novel about love, motherhood, loss, and new beginnings, Fly Away reminds us that where there is life, there is hope, and where there is love, there is forgiveness.

Told with her trademark powerful storytelling and illuminating prose, Kristin Hannah reveals why she is one of the most beloved writers of our day. Includes a Reading Group Guide Read by Kristin Hannah

My Thoughts

[Spoiler alert—Book 2 revelations]

Well, damn, try as I might, could NOT get the first book, Firefly Lane, which would have thoroughly supplied the background that Fly Away appears lacking. After a friendship spanning thirty years, Kate dies.

There has been a rift between the two, but Tully drops her very successful daytime TV show to spend the rest of the time she and Kate have left together. Tully promises Kate she will be there for her children. The problem, of course, is that Tully has devoted her life to attaining stardom on television. She never marries, doesn’t have children. Has no clue how to play devoted aunt to Kate’s twin boys and sixteen year old Marah.

What follows is a sub-plot involving Marah and her attempt to turn on, tune in, drop out. And there is an intense story in which the reader (or listener) gets the full low down on Dorothy Hart (Cloud—Tully’s flower child mother). Her story is heart-breaking and familiar to many of the older generation.

And finally, Tully’s failed attempt at reconciliation with her world, the cost and the redemption and ultimately a conclusion that somewhat settles the heart.

The narrative is long-toothed on retrospection, coulda, woulda, shouldas. A review of the highlights of the thirty years—the good and the bad. The romances, their families. Overall, I felt it rather morose, sad, not an audiobook to read with depression or happy for that matter—it’ll bring yah down. (And here again, I did not care for the narrator). Really, a rather unfortunate wrap-up for what is otherwise a celebration of a relationship few are privileged to experience. 2 stars

Overall Impression

Sometimes I discover I prefer the (audio)book, sometimes it’s the Netflix version. The Netflix version is usually a compromise of adult material, softened somewhat, or not. Character events are switched, or a major plot-twisting event occurs—not as originally written but what works best for the TV version. In this particular instance, the character that stuck out for me the most from the book that Netflix nailed is Dorothy (Cloud), who eventually looks at least ten years older than her real age. The story of Tully is tragic, really, and although obvious in the Netflix version, concentrates on the stark reality of her childhood and the life-long battle that forges in the Tully character.

I’m all over Netflix Firefly Lane Season 1, but if Season 2 follows Fly Away, I’m out.

Book Details

Fly Away: Book 2 of the Firefly Lane series
Genre: Family Life Fiction, Friendship Fiction, Women’s Sagas
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
ASIN: B000V77082
Listening Length: 16 hrs 4 mins
Narrator: Susan Ericksen
Audible Release: April 23, 2013
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Fly Away Book 2 [Amazon]

The Author: Kristin Hannah is the award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels including the international blockbuster, The Nightingale, which was named Goodreads Best Historical fiction novel for 2015 and won the coveted People’s Choice award for best fiction in the same year. It was also named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, iTunes, Buzzfeed, the Wall Street Journal, Paste, and The Week. In 2018, The Great Alone became an instant New York Times #1 bestseller and was named the Best Historical Novel of the Year by Goodreads.

The Four Winds was published in February of 2021 and immediately hit #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Indie bookstore’s bestseller lists. Additionally, it was selected as a book club pick by the both Today Show and The Book Of the Month club.

The Nightingale is currently in production at Tri Star, with Dakota and Elle Fanning set to star. Tri Star has also optioned The Great Alone and it is in development. Firefly Lane, her novel about two best friends, was the #1 Netflix show around the world, in the week it came out. The popular tv show stars Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke and Season Two is currently being filmed.

http://www.kristinhannah.com