GoodReads – Rosepoint Publishing

The Widow by John Grisham #AudiobookReview #legalthrillers

Amazon Charts #7 this week

Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Mystery & Thriller (2025)

Book Blurb:

Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly widow in need of a new will. Apparently, her husband left her a small fortune, and no one knows about it.

Once he hooks the richest client of his career, Simon works quietly to keep her wealth under the radar. But soon her story begins to crack. When she is hospitalized after a car accident, Simon realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn’t commit: murder.

Simon knows he’s innocent. But he also knows the circumstantial evidence is against him, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. To save himself, he must find the real killer….

My Review:

What? A dyed-in-the-wool devotee of legal thrillers and I haven’t read a John Grisham book lately? Is it because I equated too closely a Grisham novel with another (which shall remain unnamed) author? I suspect that might be it, but I’m certainly glad I broke down and listened to this one.

The Widow by John Grisham — The Widow cover – US

I do love me a good legal thriller (witness how many David Rosenfelt books I’ve read/listened to with his Andy Carpenter series). Even discounting a good Carpenter legal thriller, I love the courtroom scenes. The rules of the courtroom, details of the law, and the nonsense that has to be plowed through with resulting massive losses of valuable time.

Being an attorney is not all that profitable or glamorous. Just ask Simon Latch, scraping by with his one office assistant, personal life with his marriage in ruins, and a small but significant gambling problem on the side.

Just when he’s wondering how much longer he can keep the door open on bankruptcies (BORING!), in walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly woman looking to have her will re-written.

I have to admit that at first I took umbrage to that same old gravely, imperious, and high-pitched grating voice and dialogue always attributable to anyone over 65. But Simon’s boredom vanishes immediately when she appears to present as a wealthy widow—whose miserly husband stashed millions in stocks prior to his untimely death.

OMG, I couldn’t believe the way Eleanor plays Simon. And Simon, always keeping his eye on the carrot, hangs in there, using his own money to play along, betting on the come. He’s supposed to be smart, but so many stupid decisions have me wondering how he ever passed the bar.

Still, as the plot turned dark, my earlier judgment of Eleanor turned to one of antipathy while that same feeling regarding Simon turned to one of empathy.

As a result of many of his faulty decisions and the suspicious timing of her death, he is brought to trial and once again, I thoroughly enjoyed the courtroom scenes and the character of his attorney. Grisham can develop a character down to the southern accent and off-hand sense of humor.

The courtroom tap dance, however, in this case doesn’t work and now he’s in seriously hot water. He must, absolutely must, find the real killer if he is to be exonerated.

So, yeah, it might begin as a slightly slow burn, hover a bit long in the honeymoon period with Eleanor’s perceived millions, but overall, it’s a strongly engaging storyline. The pacing is over-shadowed by the development of the characters, the scenes, and the twists that catch off guard.

The tension escalates toward the reveal. I loved the combination of both the legal thriller and the whodunit. Michael Beck does an excellent job of narrating and I’d recommend the audiobook.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Legal Thrillers, Suspense Thrillers
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B0F1BGY2PF
Listening Length: 14 hrs 23 mins
Narrator: Michael Beck
Publication Date: October 21, 2025
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: John Grisham is the author of more than fifty consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Boys From Biloxi, The Judge’s List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he’s not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

Happy Thursday

The Bone Garden: A Novel by Tess Gerritsen #AudiobookReview #FlashbackFriday #HistoricalMystery

Book Blurb:

Unknown bones, untold secrets, and unsolved crimes from the distant past cast ominous shadows on the present in the dazzling new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.

Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil–human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. But whoever this nameless woman was, and whatever befell her, is knowledge lost to another time. . . .

Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College, has joined the ranks of local “resurrectionists”–those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect.

To prove his innocence, Norris must track down the only witness to have glimpsed the killer: Rose Connolly, a beautiful seamstress from the Boston slums who fears she may be the next victim. Joined by a sardonic, keenly intelligent young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris and Rose comb the city–from its grim cemeteries and autopsy suites to its glittering mansions and centers of Brahmin power–on the trail of a maniacal fiend who lurks where least expected . . . and who waits for his next lethal opportunity.

With unflagging suspense and pitch-perfect period detail, The Bone Garden deftly interweaves the thrilling narratives of its nineteenth- and twenty-first century protagonists, tracing the dark mystery at its heart across time and place to a finale as ingeniously conceived as it is shocking. Bold, bloody, and brilliant, this is Tess Gerritsen’s finest achievement to date.

My Review:

Not my first rodeo with Tess Gerritsen as my last foray into her popular books was Die Again (part of her popular Rizzoli and Isles series) last year. I learned to quickly appreciate her writing style and obvious personal knowledge of the human body, having been an active physician herself. Oh my stars, can she hook the interest and then run rampant over it!

This standalone narrative runs a timeline between 1830s Boston and the present day with Julia Hamill, although the real main character proves to be Rose Connolly, a seamstress. Julia has bought an old fixer-upper and working in her garden discovers a body that is discovered to have been buried more than a century before. The lucky lady gets to meet an aging relative of the owner of the home and together they begin the task of discovering to whom the body might have belonged.

Yes, once again, I find myself bonding with the earlier MC rather than the current one, although you have to give Julia some points for doggedly working on the mystery as well as plowing through all the stories of the ancient residence.

Rose is Irish and living and working under horrid conditions when she watches her older sister die of childbirth fever. The baby is saved but then must be saved again as she is destined to be whisked off to an orphanage for eventual adoption.

The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen — The Bone Garden cover – UK

Rose is fast. Smart. She pays a wet nurse to care for the baby safely. In the meantime, she meets a medical student attending the birth sympathetic to her situation. But his situation is almost as precarious as hers. It’s good he has trusted friends.

I listened to the audiobook and couldn’t wait to shop for groceries, start breakfast or dinner, so I could listen to more of the book. The pace goes frenetic at times, there are medical accounts of the time that has you gasping with shock and a growing romantic thread that even I could enjoy. The thirst for cadavers in medical universities created a cottage industry best not known about.

Loved the characters brought to life by the author’s skillful descriptive craft and the plot, although the climax was a surprise and a bit difficult.

Thoroughly enjoyed and totally recommended. Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Mystery, Historical Mysteries, Suspense
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B000W7E5FM
Listening Length: 12 hrs 56 minutes
Narrator: Susan Denaker
Publication Date: September 18, 2007
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was awarded her M.D.

While on maternity leave from her work as a physician, she began to write fiction and in 1987, her first novel, Call After Midnight, was published. It was just the first of 32 suspense novels that she’s written over a 36-year writing career. She also wrote a screenplay, “Adrift,” which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.

Tess’s 1996 medical thriller, Harvest, marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list and her novels have hit bestseller lists around the world ever since. Among her titles are Gravity, The Surgeon, Vanish, Listen to Me, and her upcoming spy thriller, The Spy Coast, which has just been optioned by Amazon Studios for a television series. Her books have been translated into 40 languages, and more than 40 million copies have been sold around the world.

Her series of novels featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the hit TNT television series “Rizzoli & Isles,” starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.

She lives in Maine.

For more information on Tess Gerritsen and her novels, visit her website: http://www.tessgerritsen.com or http://www.tessgerritsen.co.uk.

Welcome to 2026

A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

A Voice of the Wilderness Novel Book 1

Book Blurb:

This gripping novel about survival and family is based on the real story of one wolf’s incredible journey to find a safe place to call home. This irresistible tale by award-winning author Rosanne Parry is for fans of Sara Pennypacker’s Pax and Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan.

Swift, a young wolf cub, lives with his pack in the mountains learning to hunt, competing with his brothers and sisters for hierarchy, and watching over a new litter of cubs. Then a rival pack attacks, and Swift and his family scatter.

Alone and scared, Swift must flee and find a new home. His journey takes him a remarkable one thousand miles across the Pacific Northwest. The trip is full of peril, and Swift encounters forest fires, hunters, highways, and hunger before he finds his new home.

Inspired by the extraordinary true story of a wolf named OR-7 (or Journey), this irresistible tale of survival invites readers to experience and imagine what it would be like to be one of the most misunderstood animals on earth. This gripping and appealing novel about family, courage, loyalty, and the natural world is for fans of Fred Gipson’s Old Yeller and Katherine Applegate’s Endling.

Includes information about the real wolf who inspired the novel.

My Review:

Okay, so it’s billed as a middle school book, but certainly not one that an adult can’t enjoy as well.

As most of you who follow my blog know, I tend toward animal stories (well, among the suspense and thrillers), most predominantly dogs. This is close, and while not exactly a Canis Lupus Familiaris (domestic dog), a Canis Lupus (wolf). Our domesticated dogs, of course, a subspecies of the wolf, though it’s uncanny how many look and still have inborn Lupus traits.

Such a controversy with wolves! The ranchers cite the wolves’ tendency to take down domestic animals and hunters their game animals. The ever-encroaching spread of human habitation tends to push their boundaries.

Still, they go a long way to creating a balanced ecology and restoring biodiversity. Their management creates a tear in the normal cycle of life.

A Wold Called Wander by Rosanne Parry — A Wolf Called Wander-US cover

This is a story remarkably told from a wolf pup’s POV. He is Swift and his pack includes brothers and sisters along with mom and dad who keep them fed, train them in noble wolf ways, and protect them—until the day a rival pack attacks and he and his family are forced to flee.

It’s a coming-of-age story. And Swift has a lot to learn to survive as he is suddenly thrust into a raw world he is not totally prepared for. Since each in the pack has its “job”, he has never yet truly brought down prey.

A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry — A Wolf Called Wander – UK cover

I love that the narrative follows the true story of a real wolf that had been tagged and followed through a thousand mile journey as he seeks a new territory to call his home. The epilogue at the end describes the life of the wolf and wolves in general, as well as the tracking of the wolf’s odyssey. Along the way, he encounters coyote packs, a deadly forest fire, and a lack of food/prey and water confronting and surviving each. He meets a female eventually and together create their own pack family in the Siskiyou’s of northern California, southern Oregon.

Having lived in Yreka (California) a number of times, I can attest to the beauty of the area and the miles of remote forested wilderness. It’s a gorgeous, largely untamed area, boasting 14,000 foot Mt. Shasta (a dormant volcano).

I greatly enjoyed the narration by Kirby Heyborne for his lively reading of the audiobook. I had to chuckle, however, when he mispronounced Siskiyou—obviously never having heard it pronounced correctly.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Children’s Fox & Wolf Books, Animal Action & Adventure for Children, Animal Fiction for Children
Publisher: HarperAudio
ASIN: B07NDLGJL1
Listening Length: 3 hrs 54 mins
Narrator: Kirby Heyborne
Publication Date: May 7, 2019
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Rosanne Parry is the author of seven award-winning middle grade novels, including the newly released A Whale of the Wild and the NY Times best seller A Wolf Called Wander which is published in 11 languages. Rosanne is a part-time bookseller at legendary Portland independent bookstore, Annie Blooms, and is the captain of the League of Exceptional Writers, a free mentoring workshop for young avid readers and writers (on hiatus until 2022). She lives with her family in an old farmhouse in Portland Oregon and writes in a treehouse in her backyard. You can find Rosanne at http://www.rosanneparry.com

Here’s a list of all her books

Heart of a Shepherd
Second Fiddle
Written in Stone
The Turn of the Tide
Last of the Name
A Wolf Called Wander
A Whale of the Wild

#throwbackthursday

Our Souls at Night: A Novel by Kent Haruf #AudiobookReview #bookclub #TBT

Editors’ pick Best Literature and Fiction

Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Fiction (2015)

I attended the Y Book Club in our area yesterday for their September selection: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf. This book club meets once a month and is very popular. I can see why—the moderator does a great job keeping us to script—and the group is active and friendly.

My Thoughts

An unusual book for the book club in that it’s under 200 pages long. Not so unusual is that it’s a rather sad literary peek at the state of love in aging seniors.

The loneliness in seniors is a theme rapidly becoming popular, although this was written back in 2015, released as I understand it, after the death of the author. This is an in-your-face confrontation with that popular theme, suffered by two who’ve survived the death of their spouses in rather unhappy marriages but now find their homes and lives rather lonely and empty.

Amazingly, it’s Addie Moore who surprises her neighbor, Louis Waters, with an unusual request. They live in a small town, so of course, they will know each other, their families, and history. It’s the solitude of the evening hours that propels Addie to make the proposal to Louis. Shocked, he is rather slow to agree, but does so. The first few nights are awkward.

Frankly, I struggled through the book though the narrator’s delivery was spot on conveying the misery of loss, solitude, and isolation. I loved their little adventures, and particularly when Addie’s grandson was introduced to the narrative, then was crushed by the conclusion, even with the little ray of connection offered at the end.

Book Club Thoughts

The Y Book Club is exclusively made up of women, most of them seniors, a few of them widows. It’s a novel that strikes to the heart of most and as always provided for lively discussion.

Once again, an emotional wallop, depressing, depending on who read and their own stories. It would appear seniors are either portrayed as having too much free fun, food, and adventure, or depressing scenes of the end of years. Ugh.

This was apparently a very successful author who solicited help from his wife for this, his final book, before he died young at age 71. Particularly the last quarter of the book appears to have her heavy contribution to the manuscript.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Book Club rating 3.5 stars

Book Details:

Genre: Literary Sagas, Romance Literary Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 978-1101875902
ASIN: B00PP3DNDI
Print Length: 184 pages
Publication Date: May 26, 2015
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

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

Kent Haruf - author — Photo courtesy Goodreads

The Author: Haruf was born in Pueblo, Colorado, the son of a Methodist minister. He graduated with a BA from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965, where he would later teach, and earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973.

Before becoming a writer, Haruf worked in a variety of places, including a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation hospital in Denver, a hospital in Phoenix, a presidential library in Iowa, an alternative high school in Wisconsin, as an English teacher with the Peace Corps in Turkey, and colleges in Nebraska and Illinois. He lived with his wife, Cathy, in Salida, Colorado until his death in 2014. He had three daughters from his first marriage.

All of Haruf’s novels take place in the fictional town of Holt, in eastern Colorado. Holt is based on Yuma, Colorado, one of Haruf’s residences in the early 1980s. His first novel, The Tie That Binds (1984), received a Whiting Award and a special Hemingway Foundation/PEN citation. Where You Once Belonged followed in 1990. A number of his short stories have appeared in literary magazines.

Plainsong was published in 1999 and became a U.S. bestseller. Verlyn Klinkenborg called it “”a novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely, that it has the power to exalt the reader.”” Plainsong won the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award and the Maria Thomas Award in Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.

Eventide, a sequel to Plainsong, was published in 2004. Library Journal described the writing as “”honest storytelling that is compelling and rings true.”” Jonathan Miles saw it as a “”repeat performance”” and “”too goodhearted.””

On November 30, 2014, Haruf died at his home in Salida, Colorado at the age of 71. He died of interstitial lung disease.

(Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia courtesy Amazon bio.)

Book Club meeting — AI generated graphic courtesy Gemini

After You: A Novel by Jojo Moyes #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog #contemporarywomensfiction

Me Before You Trilogy Book 2

Award nominee

Book Blurb:

“You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. But I hope you feel a bit exhilarated too. Live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle. Just live well. Just live. Love, Will.”

How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?

Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.

Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. . . .

For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.

My Review:

Okay, I’ll say it: I’m grudgingly become a Moyes fan, though I have to say I wasn’t thrilled when she immediately followed The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek with her own version she called The Giver of Stars.

After You by Jojo Moyes — After You-UK cover

Louisa manages to fall off a multi-story building and survive with the help of hunky, single Sam. (I don’t think that’s a spoiler here as this is an aging trilogy and I’m obviously the last to read it.) She’s survived the death of Will, barely, but now lives a mundane life in a sad job with a crappie boss and stupid dress code.

“Surprise, surprise. It’s only us girls who have to work looking like porno Munchkins.”

Her family feels she didn’t do enough to rally against Will’s suicide. She can’t stop mourning and is trying to move on by going to a support group of others who’ve experienced a catastrophic loss.

“…recalling the words of the Moving On Circle. Allow yourself moments of happiness.”

Then Lily appears at her door. She presents as the daughter of Will of whom he was unaware. Estranged from her mother and the family she created after the college affair that resulted in a baby, Lily is sixteen and the epitome of a teenager. (Gees, don’t those descriptions cause flashbacks!!)

The problem is: Lou is a mess. She’s not really handling her own situation, much less caring for a petulant, difficult teenager, alienated from her mother and most everyone else in her circle. (Reminds me of another book I just read with somewhat the same plot, except it’s a boy, not a girl teenager.)

Throw in a lip-licking offer of a job in New York, something to truly salivate over, and she definitely wrestled with a few sleepless nights. How would she take care of Lily and go to NY? She couldn’t. What about Sam—where was their relationship going? Can she truly chill the mourning over Will and be ready to proceed into the next chapter of her life?

So, anyway…given the circumstances, she does the best she can—which isn’t bad really having no experience with a child of her own and in the meantime, gets a little closer to Sam. Sam is an additional problem for her as her feelings have grown stronger for him and her fears multipled with conflict regarding Will and a possible new loss.

I enjoyed the dialogue, frequently including odd bits of humor dropped in to lighten the mood: “Oh, my God,” I said. “You’re like the ultimate female fantasy. “
“Shelves,” he said, deadpan. “You need shelves.”
”Oh, baby. Keep talking.”
”And home-cooked food.”
“That’s it. I just came.”

I was beginning to love how I perceived Book 2 would close. But no, wrong again. Seems like that also happened in Book 3 for me. Not into the whole rooftop scene, trying to imagine all ages climbing those fire stairs. And then the ending? I loved the Lily thing—nice compromise, but the job and Sam thing. Kind of a let-down for me.

Was it also for you?

In typical fashion around here, I read Still Me, the third in the trilogy, before I read either the first or second. I’m thinking I still preferred Someone Else’s Shoes, released in 2023, but this book, and the two parts I read of the trilogy is sadly, oddly compelling.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Rating: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Contemporary Women Fiction, Contemporary Women’s Fiction, Women’s Domestic Life Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 978-0698152045
ASIN: B00TY3ZKG8
Print Length: 353 pages
Publication Date: September 29, 2015
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

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

The Author: Jojo Moyes is a novelist and journalist. Her books include the bestsellers Me Before You, After You and Still Me, The Girl You Left Behind, The One Plus One and her short story collection Paris for One and Other Stories. The Giver of Stars is her most recent bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. Her novels have been translated into forty-six languages, have hit the number one spot in twelve countries and have sold over thirty-eight million copies worldwide.

Me Before You has now sold over fourteen million copies worldwide and was adapted into a major film starring Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke. Jojo lives in Essex with her family.

#TuesdayBookBlog

The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb #AudiobookReview #LiteraryFiction

#1 Best Seller in Literary Fiction

Book Blurb:

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER

#1 New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb, celebrated for two prior Oprah Book Club selections, returns with an exceptional third pick, a propulsive novel following a young father grappling with unbearable tragedy as he searches for hope, redemption, and the possibility of forgiveness.

Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that’s before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother’s enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?

My Review:

I’ve read a number of Oprah’s Book Club picks before. Sometimes she’s wrong.

This isn’t one of them.

I’m not sure whether I should sob uncontrollably or be angry. But then who would receive the wrath? The main character, Corby Ledbetter, or “the system”?

This is a book that will rip at your heart—first at the tragic beginning to the novel, or how it all ends?

I’m torn. Should I feel sorry for Corby? No. I just can’t.

First, it’s an intensive, insightful look at the heart of a man thrust into a role he’d never conceived of performing—that of stay-at-home-dad of twins after the loss of his ego-cementing job. When it is increasingly obvious that employment won’t come back easily, he begins to deal with his anxiety and growing depression first with doctor-prescribed narcotics, then self-enhanced by an increasing demand for a hard liquor kicker.

It is the pills and booze, along with a neighbor’s innocent distraction on a morning out of routine, that cause a disastrous accident. One that he’ll not recover from, nor his wife forgive. Even as I could see what was coming and cried out, I could not change the plot.

The grief is crushing. The prison is a new brutal reality, cruel, desperate. The narrative eases the reader into merciless prison life and follows Corby as he learns to cope with prison life. The characters are given such intensity the scene can fill the reader with dread or heart-pounding blood pressure.

The writing is alternately filled with compassion and empathy while at the same time painting a picture of deeply flawed characters, each seeking to survive another day. The author presents the staff in humanity (as in the librarian) and inhumanity (as in the prison guards), juxtaposed against each other. There is no time to catch a breath—you don’t have that luxury.

Corby alternately blames others and himself. An authentic story of friendship, grief, love, and forgiveness. But can a heinous act ever truly be forgiven, whether accidental or deliberate?

My first book by this author—it was heavy and one that has sticking power. Did you read it? Did it continue to nag at you?

Many thanks to the publisher and my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this book. The narrator does a great job emotionally delivering the novel. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Literary Fiction, Crime Thrillers
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
ASIN: B0DHLQ8WS7
Listening Length: 14 hrs 40 mins
Narrator: Jeremy Sisto
Publication Date: June 10, 2025
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Wally Lamb’s first two novels, She’s Come Undone (Simon & Schuster/Pocket, 1992) and I Know This Much Is True (HarperCollins/ReganBooks, 1998), were # 1 New York Times bestsellers, New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and featured titles of Oprah’s Book Club. I Know This Much Is True was a Book of the Month Club main selection and the June 1999 featured selection of the Bertelsman Book Club, the national book club of Germany. Between them, She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True have been translated into eighteen languages. Lamb is also the editor of the nonfiction anthologies Couldn’t Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters (HarperCollins/ReganBooks, 2003) and I’ll Fly Away (HarperCollins, 2007), collections of autobiographical essays which evolved from a writing workshop Lamb facilitates at Connecticut’s York Correctional Institute, a maximum-security prison for women. He has served as a Connecticut Department of Corrections volunteer from 1999 to the present. Wally Lamb is a Connecticut native who holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in teaching from the University of Connecticut and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College. Lamb was in the ninth year of his twenty-five-year career as a high school English teacher at his alma mater, the Norwich Free Academy, when he began to write fiction in 1981. He has also taught writing at the University of Connecticut, where he directed the English Department’s creative writing program. Wally Lamb has said of his fiction, “Although my characters’ lives don’t much resemble my own, what we share is that we are imperfect people seeking to become better people. I write fiction so that I can move beyond the boundaries and limitations of my own experiences and better understand the lives of others. That’s also why I teach. As challenging as it sometimes is to balance the two vocations, writing and teaching are, for me, intertwined.” Honors for Wally Lamb include: the Connecticut Center for the Book’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Connecticut Bar Association’s Distinguished Public Service Award, the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, the Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award, The National Institute of Business/Apple Computers “Thanks to Teachers” Award. Lamb has received Distinguished Alumni awards from Vermont College and the University of Connecticut. He was the 1999 recipient of the New England Book Award for fiction. I Know This Much Is True won the Friends of the Library USA Readers’ Choice Award for best novel of 1998, the result of a national poll, and the Kenneth Johnson Memorial Book Award, which honored the novel’s contribution to the anti-stigmatization of mental illness. She’s Come Undone was a 1992 “Top Ten” Book of the Year selection in People magazine and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Best First Novel of 1992. Wally Lamb’s third novel, The Hour I First Believed, explores chaos theory by interfacing several generations of a fictional Connecticut family with such nonfictional American events as the Civil War, the Columbine High School shootings of 1999, the Iraq War, and Hurricane Katrina. The book will be published by HarperCollins in November of 2008. Find Wally Lamb at Wally Lamb dot net.

Lamb lives in Connecticut with his wife, Christine, and they have three sons. [Goodreads]

Have a great Week! — Graphic by Canva templates

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

in Arctic & Antarctica History

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

Experience “one of the best adventure books ever written” (Wall Street Journal) in this New York Times bestseller: the harrowing tale of British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole.

This is a new reading of the thrilling account of one of the most astonishing feats of exploration and human courage ever recorded.

In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice. For five months, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world.

Lansing describes how the men survived a 1,000-mile voyage in an open boat across the stormiest ocean on the globe and an overland trek through forbidding glaciers and mountains. The book recounts a harrowing adventure, but ultimately it is the nobility of these men and their indefatigable will that shines through.

My Review:

I always seem to be attracted to the old sailing ships and their stories, probably because of my grandfather’s stories, paintings, and poems. So of course I jumped on this as soon as I saw it. It didn’t disappoint.

There were a number of occasions on which I experienced deja vu. Well, not of mine, but that of another sailing story read and loved, The Wager by Davis Grann. Hard put to say which I loved the most—loved The Wager. And while there were striking similarities, each were very different stories, each told with heart-thumping descriptions landing you right in the middle of the men struggling to survive.

The story of the men of the British ship Endurance follows the historical chronicle of her as she set sail in August of 1914, more than one-and-a-half centuries after the story of The Wager, also a British vessel that left England in 1740.

The Endurance had a whole nother mission—that of an early attempt to cross the South Pole. But timing is everything and it definitely went wrong when the ship was trapped in ice, then crushed. How do men live on ice flows, much less survive a voyage of 1,000 miles in an open boat to habitation?

I would wager physically impossible, if not psychologically, except for one minor detail. The Captain. Ernest Shackleton.

Some credit must go to his men—there were no mutinies.

And no deaths. They all survived? Under those conditions for over a year? Yes.

The man was more than an optimist. He was a brilliant strategist and sailor, and he had good, smart men (27 of them) under his command. But no matter the worsening conditions, no matter the horrible mind-numbing weather enough to drive men mad, he continued with unflailing confidence. And his navigator—unbelievably guiding them to civilization with almost pin-point accuracy. Back then–

First to lose the ship, then to be divided into separate ice flows, through starvation, illnesses, blinding psychotic provoking weather patterns, sleep deprivation, and predators. Good grief, to survive one of these would be hero-inducing visions of invincibility. They fought it all together and won.

This tale of the odyssey was kept in journals by a number of the men and researched meticulously, bringing the story together. A Morgan Stanley video was released seven years ago on PBS called Dare to Survive: Shackleton’s Voyage of Endurance 2002. You might wish to watch.

There are a number of cringe-worthy chapters certainly more monumental than the chapter that describes their tearful decision to kill and eat their dogs, after them having been more than working companions. Yes, I know, I know.

They were starving.

Still, amazingly creative (aside from the dogs) in discovering ways and means for their survival and one you shouldn’t miss. I particularly recommend the audiobook beautifully performed by the narrator. Another instance of what the human body is capable of enduring.

Book Details:

Genre: Arctic & Antarctica History, Expeditions & Discoveries World History
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
ISBN-13: ‎978-065-58792
ASIN: B0018DNFY6
Listening Length: 10 hrs 21 mins
Narrator: Simon Prebble
Publication Date: April 08, 2008
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK

The Author: Alfred Lansing (July 21, 1921 – 1975) was an American journalist and writer, best known for his book Endurance (1959), an account of Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic explorations. Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [Amazon\

Born in Chicago in Chicago, IL, in July, 1921, Lansing was an American journalist who wrote for Collier’s, among other magazines and was later an editor for Time, Inc. Books.

Alfred Lansing served in the US Navy from 1940-46. He received the Purple Heart for his wartime service.

Later he attended North Park College, 1946-48, Northwestern University, 1948-50.

Lansing became a member of the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England in 1957. [Goodreads]

#ThrowbackThursday

Don’t Open the Door: A Novel by Allison Brennan #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Book Blurb:

A family torn apart. A botched investigation. She’ll stop at nothing to get answers.

US Marshal Regan Merritt never bought the FBI’s theory that her ten-year-old son’s murder was tied to her job. Yet as leads went cold, she’d had to walk away from the marshals, the case and her now ex-husband, Grant, who blamed her for Chase’s death.

After Regan receives a chilling voice mail from her former boss, Tommy, claiming new information about Chase’s murder, she can no longer stay away from her pain-filled past. Especially when Tommy’s murdered before she can return his call.

Now more than ever, Regan’s determined to find the truth, but the more she digs, the more evidence points to Grant as the killer’s true target. But Grant isn’t talking. As she tries to pin down her ex, Regan discovers something much bigger and far more sinister is at play—and she’s running out of people she can trust.

My Review:

I tried another book by this author last year, You’ll Never Find Me, Book 1 of another series. This is Book 2 of the Regan Merritt series. This series features ex-US Marshall Regan Merritt whose own ten-year-old son was murdered, thought by ex-husband related to her job. She never accepted that theory.

Still doesn’t.

So she’s quickly embroiled in the cold case again when her former boss calls with what he feels is new information. I think one of my problems with this writing style is a plot point that is repeating ad nauseum.

The pacing is uneven for me and there are twists that throw the plot off-course, becoming convoluted. Regan decides she must determine what her former boss uncovered with hopes of finally getting to the truth. The path begins to lead to ex-husband Grant, but he’s uncooperative.

As she gradually uncovers more bits and pieces, it’s obvious the plot gets into the higher echelons of wealth and that she’s dealing with some powerful people.

The conclusion gets strung out a bit much for me, not sure I needed all the minutiae. Perhaps you read Book 1 and will be thoroughly happy to learn that the reason for the death of Chase has been resolved. Or, maybe I’m just bored easily.

Rosepoint Publishing: Three Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Domestic Thrillers, Crime Thrillers
Publisher: Harlequin Audio
ASIN: B09V98R2PJ
Listening Length: 11 hrs 11 mins
Narrator: Amy McFadden
Publication Date: January 24, 2023
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Don’t Open the Door – Amazon-US
Amazon-UK

The Author: Allison Brennan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of more than forty thrillers and numerous short stories. She was nominated for Best Paperback Original Thriller by International Thriller Writers, had multiple nominations and two Daphne du Maurier Awards, and is a five-time RITA finalist for Best Romantic Suspense. Allison believes life is too short to be bored, so she had five kids and writes three books a year. Originally from northern California, in 2019 she and her husband relocated to Arizona where they enjoy baseball Spring Training, hiking, and spending time with their kids, grandson, and assorted pets.