#NYTimesbestsellingauthor – Page 10

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah #BookReview – #TuesdayBookBlog

#1 Best Seller in Historical World War II Fiction

Book Blurb:

Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother?

From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes Kristin Hannah’s powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past.

Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time—and all the way to the end.

Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.

My Review:

Stalwart and stoic, the mother of Meredith and Nina was Russian-born and as unemotional and cold to her daughters as a Siberian winter. The sisters, 180 degrees in temperament and life experience gave up some time in their early teens vying for their mother’s attention that was never going to come. They adored their dad.

The problem, and the premise of the novel, is the promise he exacted from Meredith as he lay dying—one she freely gave to ease her dad’s passage—but certainly not one she expected to actually keep.

Meredith is the Earth Mother, deftly handling family and career to exhaustion, taking on more than she should, not realizing she could ever say no. She took on the care of her parents while Nina, the younger sister galllivanted over the globe in search of her next Pulitzer Prize photo. A photojournalist of some reputation, she never stayed in one place long, always scurrying to the next big story—somewhere across the globe.

The two sisters under one roof never do well together for long, particularly when they are left with their mother. It is Nina who finally decides she will discover “the story.”

Be prepared to hang in there. I’ve read a number of Hannah books and they always capture my attention quickly. I think this is possibly the longest to go beyond mundane back story, dual timeline then and now, to get to the crux of the matter. Then it heats up.

With the slow build during the first half then, I guess the author isn’t worried about wringing out the last bit of emotion in either sister, the mother so cold and austere as to barely register as background noise. Anya loved her winter garden. It’s where she could go and be lost to the world—and she was—often.

So, while I was waiting for something to happen, it apparently did and swept right over me and I had to play a little catch-up. I enjoyed getting into the war years in Leningrad as I often wonder how people can go on in these heinous circumstances. What drives them forward? Keeps them from quitting? In this instance, wasn’t it Anya’s children?

The descriptions have the reader shivering with both the weather and the conditions of war. I never quite understood Anya’s arm’s length love for her American children. She was certainly capable of demonstrable love toward her husband. The sisters being opposites rang true of families; one the ant, the other the grasshopper.

A story of a dysfunctional family finally looking for redemption. Did the conclusion smooth everything out—make it all better? Maybe.

Never too late? Maybe.

But for me, too little too late. Sorry.

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

Rosepoint Rating: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Historical World War II Fiction, 20^th Century Historical Fiction, Mothers & Children Fiction
Publisher: St Martin’s Press, First Edition (January 28, 2010)
ASIN: B003672JHG
Print Length: 401 pages
Publication Date: January 28, 2010
Source: Library
Title Link(s): Winter Garden [Amazon]

The Author: Kristin Hannah is the award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels. Her newest novel, The Women, about the nurses who served in the Vietnam war, will be released on February 6, 2024.

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, which named it the best book of 2021.

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.

In 2015, The Nightingale became an international blockbuster and was Goodreads Best Historical fiction novel for 2015 and won the coveted People’s Choice award for best fiction in the same year. It was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, iTunes, Buzzfeed, the Wall Street Journal, Paste, and The Week.

The Nightingale is currently in pre-production at Tri Star. Firefly Lane, her beloved novel about two best friends, was the #1 Netflix series around the world, in the week it came out. The popular tv show stars Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke.

A former attorney, Kristin lives in the Pacific Northwest.

#TuesdayBookBlog

The Missing Piece: A Novel (Dismas Hardy Book 19) by John Lescroart #BookReview

Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Book Blurb:

The beloved New York Times bestselling Dismas Hardy series returns with a “perfect piece of entertainment from a master storyteller” (Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author) about a relentlessly twisty murder mystery.

No one mourned when San Francisco DA Wes Farrell put Paul Riley in prison eleven years ago for the rape and murder of his girlfriend. And no one is particularly happy to see him again when he’s released after The Exoneration Initiative uncovered evidence that pinned the crime on someone else. In fact, Riley soon turns up murdered, surrounded by the loot from his latest scam. But if Riley was innocent all along, who wanted him dead?

To the cops, it’s straightforward: the still-grieving father of Riley’s dead girlfriend killed him. Farrell, now out of politics and practicing law with master attorney Dismas Hardy, agrees to represent the defendant, Doug Rush—and is left in the dust when Rush suddenly vanishes. At a loss, Farrell and Hardy ask PI Abe Glitsky to track down the potentially lethal defendant.

The search takes Glitsky through an investigative hall of mirrors populated by wounded parents, crooked cops, cheating spouses, and single-minded vigilantes. As Glitsky embraces and then discards one enticing theory after another, the truth seems to recede ever further. So far that he begins to question his own moral compass in this “hypnotic and powerful” (Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author) thriller that’ll keep you guessing until the very end.

His Review:

People die quickly in this tome. There is a pair of detectives that are on the case and their boss is irritated that they could not immediately solve it. He feels that his detectives spend entirely too much time in the office or wandering around town trying to put the pieces together. He wants a quick indictment and threatens their livelihood unless he sees immediate results.

The investigative pair of Waverly and Yamashiro have been together for many years and are the investigative spear point for the department. They ask questions at the last place the victim was seen alive, the local watering hole.

The solution seems very circular to me with the potential perpetrator coming back into the detective’s focus repeatedly. The actual criminal does not appear until very late in the novel. I felt I was receiving false leads over and over again. The reveal when it finally arrived was quick and succinct near the last chapter. The dialog at times had some funny twists and I found myself laughing out loud at a few of the antics.

This book will entertain readers when they toss logic to the wind and go with the flow. Enjoy! 3.5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Legal Thrillers, Serial Killer Thrillers
Publisher: Atria Books
ASIN: B08VKLGQ71
Print Length: 301 pages
Publication Date: March 29, 2022
Source: Publisher and NetGalley
Title Link(s): The Missing Piece [Amazon]

The Author: “John Lescroart‘s writing skills are a national treasure.” —The Huffington Post

John Lescroart is the author of twenty-nine novels, nineteen of which have been New York Times Bestsellers. Libraries Unlimited places him among “The 100 Most Popular Thriller and Suspense Authors.” With sales of over twelve million copies, his books have been translated into twenty-two languages in more than seventy-five countries, and his short stories appear in many anthologies.

John’s first book, SUNBURN, won the Joseph Henry Jackson Award for Best Novel by a California author. DEAD IRISH, THE 13TH JUROR, and THE KEEPER were nominees for the Shamus, Anthony, and Silver Falchion Best Mystery Novel, respectively; additionally THE 13TH JUROR is included in the International Thriller Writers publication “100 Must-Read Thrillers Of All Time.” HARD EVIDENCE made “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Ultimate Reading List.” THE SUSPECT was the American Author’s Association 2007 Book of the Year. THE MOTIVE was an Audie Finalist of the Audio Publishers Association. THE MERCY RULE, NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, THE SUSPECT, THE FALL and THE RULE OF LAW have been major market Book Club selections. John’s books have been Main Selections of one or more of the Literary Guild, Mystery Guild, and Book of the Month Club.

Blood Mountain by Alisa Lynn Valdés – #BookReview – #TuesdayBookBlog

Jodi Luna Book 2

Book Blurb:

New Mexico game warden Jodi Luna disrupts a murderous wilderness adventure in this thrilling second installment from Alisa Lynn Valdés, New York Times bestselling author of The Dirty Girls Social Club.

Former poetry professor Jodi Luna hasn’t quite adjusted to life as a game warden. Her boss thinks she’s better with animals than humans, and the man she’s seeing wants a real relationship. Still reeling from her husband’s death, Jodi has to admit that she keeps people at a distance.

After her new friend, wealthy actress Claudia Evans, gathers with family members in the New Mexico wilderness, Jodi gets some unsettling news—that Claudia’s brother-in-law is missing. Eager to help, Jodi ventures into the wild to investigate, only to be thwarted by a blizzard that leaves the entire group stranded at a fishing lodge.

Jodi is no stranger to extreme weather, but when these reluctant adventurers start turning up mauled around the snowed-in lodge, Jodi suspects the worst: This was no bear. This was murder.

And inside the snowy confines of this rustic hideaway, everyone is fair game…

…for a killer.

My Review:

Lest you assume this might be the ole people stuck in a blizzard and start disappearing you could be right.

With a couple caveats: Jodi Luna was raised in New Mexico and has returned to try and chill both she and her daughter following the death of her husband on the East Coast where she was a professor. Her fifteen year old daughter Mila, whether or not having witnessed the death of her dad, certainly sounds like a typical teenager to me and a pretty smart one at that. So it is her daughter who saves the day.

Hoping to turn their lives around, Jodi has gotten a job as the local game warden. She loves animals and knows how to handle most people and the situations involving them.

Her new supervisor assigns her a job requested by the governor as a favor and is clearly no request. She is to proceed to a ranch compound owned by a billionaire who is hosting his annual elk hunt on his palatial estate. Teddy Evans and his wife invited his brothers and a sister, and their spouses then splits leaving the guiding up to Jodi.

Of course, the siblings feel ridiculously entitled, are obnoxious, and the men less than thrilled over having a female guide. The wife just wants Jodi to help organize and keep them from killing each other.

Oops.

The property is massive, beautiful, and there’s a treacherous storm brewing that threatens to cancel the hunt (for animals anyway). They are high up in the mountains and isolated. Jodi brought her daughter along who transitions from Godzilla to brilliant loving daughter (I had a little disbelief there).

There is a little property that straddles the ingress/egress road to the ranch compound owned by a woman been there longer than dirt and has a pet bear. She can effectively stop traffic going through but there are far more reaching reasons why the billionaire wants her property.

Jodi seems pretty intelligent but makes a few decisions that I wondered whether might have been irrational. They discovered a body that appears to have been mauled and she is taking no chances and isolates everyone. Jodi is dealing with other issues as well and her job is in jeopardy.

So many conflicts, themes of family dysfunction, entitlement, greed, and trust are interwoven into a plausible plot. The storyline keeps a good pace, pushes some disbelief, throws in twists and adds complexity. It’s entertaining. The female protagonist reminded me a little of Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon series, although I think Pigeon is softer around the edges than Jodi who could become grating.

I enjoyed the book, it kept my interest. Thinking I’ll go back to Book #1 and catch up, although this could very well be read as a standalone.

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

Rosepoint Rating: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Political Thrillers, Psychological Thrillers, Police Procedurals
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
ISBN: 1662507151
ASIN: B0BTJC7JFR
Print Length: 331 pages
Publication Date: April 16, 2024
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

The Author: Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of many novels. Published in 11 languages and with more than 1 million books in print, Alisa was named one of the 25 Most Influential Hispanics in the United States by Time magazine; Latina magazine named her a Woman of the Year; Entertainment Weekly hailed her as a Breakout Literary Star; and Hispanic Business magazine has twice named her among the 100 Most Influential people in the nation. Alisa is a former staff writer for the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times, and holds a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. Alisa is also a screenwriter and TV and film producer, and a playwright and composer with a bachelor’s from Berklee College of Music.

#TuesdayBookBlog

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett – #AudiobookReview – #TuesdayBookBlog

Best Books of the Year 2023 [Amazon]

Nominee for Best Fiction (2023)

Book Blurb:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK READ BY MERYL STREEP

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

My Review:

Again with the coming of age, family life fiction, I sank into the Tom Lake audiobook in no small part because of the author—listened to The Dutch House and loved it—but also because Meryl Streep narrates this one. Can you get any better than that? Yeah, The Dutch House is narrated by Tom Hanks. Patchett can warrant a highly celebrated actor to narrate her literary fiction.

Streep is perfect for this part and, indeed, she plays it like an acting part, using that memorable voice to set the tone, the scene, and the characters beautifully. It’s much like having her in your living room and telling the story to you as if it were her own. But it’s Lara’s story, whose three daughters return to northern Michigan during the pandemic with cherry picking looming over the farm in the summer…Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise.

It is a down home look back on Lara’s life which as a young woman revolves around the theater and the actors, support staff who present the plays—now a local theater company called Tom Lake preparing for the play Our Town. But heaven knows she had some history and though the girls have all heard stories of those years, the one they keep reverting to is their mother’s romance with Peter Duke. He went on to become a big star.

Particularly with an audiobook that switches time frames, seems like sometimes in the same paragraph, you can lose the train of thought and have to work to catch up. Even Streep can get into quiet reflection mode and slow the progression of the storyline somewhat. There are a lot of support characters, so the reader is forced to remember where in the narrative it was prior to being buried in minutia.

Patchett manages to leave little pearls of discovery that eventually become a jewel of the tale. Along the way, there have been little surprises, twists, but ones generally expected. So what are we leading up to? Could she have taken the left at the fork and gone on to stardom herself? Could she have pursued Duke and become the shadow behind him? Why did she marry Joe and face a life on a Michigan cherry farm?

Descriptions have the farm and the area sounding so lovely, the reader might crave the beauty and peace of the life (unless you also gave thought to Michigan winters). There is a lot about theater here, the secrets behind the curtain, family secrets (some of which Lara coyly retains), and well-developed characters including the family rescue dog—throw in the grandma for good measure.

Yes, I greatly enjoyed Streep’s interpretation of the novel and the writing style but found the pace was a bit slow.

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: Coming of Age Fiction, Family life Fiction
Publisher: HarperAudio
ASIN: B0BPZYH97W
Listening Length: 11 hrs 22 mins
Narrator: Meryl Streep
Publication Date: August 1, 2023Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)

Title Link: Tom Lake [Amazon]

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. (Amazon)

Patchett was born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother is the novelist Jeanne Ray.

She moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was six, where she continues to live. Patchett said she loves her home in Nashville with her doctor husband and dog. If asked if she could go any place, that place would always be home. “Home is …the stable window that opens out into the imagination.”

Patchett attended high school at St. Bernard Academy, a private, non-parochial Catholic school for girls run by the Sisters of Mercy. Following graduation, she attended Sarah Lawrence College and took fiction writing classes with Allan Gurganus, Russell Banks, and Grace Paley. She later attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she met longtime friend Elizabeth McCracken. It was also there that she wrote her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars.

In 2010, when she found that her hometown of Nashville no longer had a good book store, she co-founded Parnassus Books with Karen Hayes; the store opened in November 2011. In 2012, Patchett was on the Time 100 list of most influential people in the world by TIME magazine. (Goodreads)

Lost Man’s Lane by Scott Carson – #BookReview – #HorrorSuspense

Book Blurb:

A teenager explores the darkness hidden within his hometown in this spellbinding supernatural thriller from bestselling author Scott Carson.

For a sixteen-year-old, a summer internship working for a private investigator seems like a dream come true—particularly since the PI is investigating the most shocking crime to hit Bloomington, Indiana, in decades. A local woman has vanished, and the last time anyone saw her, she was in the backseat of a police car driven by a man impersonating an officer.

Marshall Miller’s internship puts him at the center of the action, a position he relishes until a terrifying moment that turns public praise for his sharp observations and uncanny memory into accusations of lying and imperiling the case. His detective mentor withdraws, friends and family worry and whisper, and Marshall alone understands that the darkness visiting his town this summer goes far beyond a single crime. Now his task is to explain it—and himself.

His Review:

I remember the concern about the change from the 1900’s to 2000. Pundits predicted the economy would stop and business grind to a halt. It seemed that the inventors of computers and the programs did not take into account the underlying date sequencing in computers. It was a very big non-event on January 1, 2000, because everything just continued. However, in 1999 the threat was real and computer geeks shook in their boots.

Marshall is a 17-year-old making his way through school with all of the pressures and angst that only that age can conjure. His mother is a single mom doing the best she can and holding down three jobs to make ends meet. Marshall has no idea who his father is and is harassed continually by the bullies in his school in Bloomington, Indiana. His mom is his staunchest ally but she cannot keep him being a target.

His primary problem is that he has seen a ghost who threatens his life after a routine traffic stop. Add to that the troubles with his boyhood sweetheart.

A series of mishaps and life-threatening events are thwarted by the one person who might dislike him the most. He then befriends Noah who hires him for the summer and works to train him as a private investigator. The job is supposed to be boring but Marshall finds it extremely stressful and frightening. He keeps seeing the ghost who continues to make his life miserable. Add a repeating history of young girls mysteriously dying in the town since the early 1900s and the entire story takes on a terrible and foreboding patina.

I remember reading Edgar Allen Poe during my high school years and marveling at the twists employed in his books. Scott Carson has employed some of that style and the result is a myriad of unexplained deaths. Can Scott save his girlfriend and solve some of these questions? I could not put this book down and the twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat until the end. Enjoy! 4.5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. These are my own opinions.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Horror Suspense, Paranormal Suspense, Kidnapping Thrillers
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
ASIN: B0C7RNJ7H4
Print Length: 524 pages pages
Publication Date: March 26, 2024
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: Scott Carson is the pen name of Michael Koryta, a New York Times bestselling author whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages, adapted into major motion pictures, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A former private investigator and reporter, his writing has been praised by Stephen King, Michael Connelly, and Dean Koontz, among many others. Raised in Bloomington, Indiana, he now lives in Indiana and Maine.

Reading Ireland Month 2024

Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon – #AudiobookReview – #ThrowbackThursday

Book Blurb:

With everyone onboard harboring dark secrets and at least one person determined to make sure the airship doesn’t make the return trip, Flight of Dreams gives an utterly suspenseful, heart-wrenching explanation for one of the most enduring mysteries of the 20th century.

On the evening of May 3, 1937, Emilie Imhof boards the Hindenburg. As the only female crew member, Emilie has access to the entire airship, from the lavish dining rooms and passenger suites to the gritty engine cars and control room. She hears everything, but with rumors circulating about bomb threats, Emilie’s focus is on maintaining a professional air…and keeping her own plans under wraps.

What Emilie can’t see is that everyone – from the dynamic vaudeville acrobat to the high-standing German officer – seems to be hiding something.

Giving free rein to countless theories of sabotage, charade, and mishap, Flight of Dreams takes us on the thrilling three-day transatlantic flight through the alternating perspectives of Emilie; Max, the ship’s navigator, who is sweet on her; Gertrud, a bold female journalist who’s been blacklisted in her native Germany; Werner, a 13-year-old cabin boy with a bad habit of sneaking up on people; and a brash American who’s never without a drink in his hand. Everyone knows more than they initially let on, and as the novel moves inexorably toward its tragic climax, the question of which of the passengers will survive the trip infuses every scene with a deliciously unbearable tension.

With enthralling atmospheric details that immediately transport and spellbinding plotting that would make Agatha Christie proud, Flight of Dreams will keep you guessing till the last minute. And, as The New York Times Book Review said of her last novel, “This book is more meticulously choreographed than a chorus line. It all pays off”.

My Review:

The best part of this audiobook was the authenticity of characters the author brought to her fiction account of what might have actually happened to set off the Hindenburg in a fiery explosion that crashed to the ground within thirty seconds. Of the ninety-seven persons aboard, there were sixty-two survivors, among whom were two boys named Werner, eight years (a passenger) and fourteen years (the cabin boy). The two dogs did not survive.

With the possible exception of today’s school children, is there anyone not familiar with the story of this amazing 1937 German sixteen-story hydrogen blimp that burned into a molten heap in a field in New Jersey?

The real reason for the explosion was never determined, however, theorizing a possible leaking gas cell.

That’s okay, as this riveting narrative captures people from the original passengers and crew and creates a possible scenario and a fascinating read. Atmospheric—of course. It cruised at an altitude of 650 feet but could reach about 1500 feet if needed and the descriptions of the interior, not just passenger areas, but crew quarters and engine compartments are detailed.

The author used passenger and crew names and if they survived in real life, they survived in her book.

Interesting to have the POVs of the main characters, their reason for being on the ship, hopes, and dreams. The cabin boy is especially engaging, as is a young woman attendant (the first on a dirigible). Not all are sympathetic and the suspicions, tensions ramp up with each chapter and each new POV.

The storyline as it progresses into the climax takes on a frenetic pace, particularly after the initial explosion. Heart in throat, it’s hoped one of your favorite characters (or person in real life) survives.

And it’s amazing any did. Sixty-two (twenty-three passengers, thirty-nine crewmen).

Hindenburg disaster - photo courtesy Wikipedia — Photo courtesy Wikipedia

I applaud the research that went into the book and loved the epilogue that explained many more details and specific reasons for the way she spun the novel. Whether you’re a fan of historical fiction or not, this is a gripping book, the examination of a zeppelin airship, its attempt to land following a local thunderstorm, and the reason why it was filled with highly flammable hydrogen. The Hindenburg disaster “marked the abrupt end of the airship era.”*

My second audiobook by this author, as good as the first The Frozen River. You can’t go wrong with either. I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Thrillers, Literary Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B01AO8KUPM
Listening Length: 12 hrs 40 mins
Narrator: John Lee
Publication Date: February 23, 2016
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Flight of Dreams [Amazon]

The Author: Ariel Lawhon is a critically acclaimed, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction. She is the author of THE WIFE THE MAID AND THE MISTRESS, FLIGHT OF DREAMS, I WAS ANASTASIA and CODE NAME HELENE. Her books have been translated into numerous languages and have been Good Morning America, Library Reads, Indie Next, One Book One County, Amazon Spotlight, Costco, and Book of the Month Club selections. She lives in the rolling hills outside Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and four sons. She splits her time between the grocery store and the baseball field.

#ThhrowbackThursday

*Courtesy Wikipedia

The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger – #AudiobookReview – #HistoricalFiction

Best Books of the Year 2023

Nominee for Best Mystery & Thriller (2023)

Book Blurb:

On Memorial Day in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn’s murder but also put to rest the demons from his own past.

Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her adolescent son, the intrepid publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy, and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories and harbor secrets that Quinn’s death threatens to expose.

My Review:

Oh my goodness. It’s a heavy one, this novel.

Memorial Day in the 50s in Jewel, Minnesota was several lifetimes ago. Men who returned from WWII and the recent Korean conflict are still working through their PTSD difficulties, assimilation back into society. It was a decade of violent memories, intolerance, and prejudices, and in this little community, as most, those who exploit and reap the spoils.

Main character Sheriff Brody Dern is one of the local decorated war heroes. Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran another but he returned with a Japanese wife who was recently fired by the Quinns before her employer, wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the river. While there is not a lot of loss felt by the residents, they immediately suspect Bluestone.

Many support characters among the well-developed main characters create a multi-layered picture of the townspeople, struggles, and dynamics. From bold, colorful depictions of the area to the emotions, tempers, and prejudices of the people, the storyline captures the suspense and tension of the investigation.

Certainly there are themes of discrimination and intolerance as well as the foil in the young boys subplot to throw the reader off. More than one twist here but all roads lead to a satisfactory conclusion and in the meantime, a study of human nature in the prose provides thoughtful reflection.

The author penned an immersive story with engaging characters—but you may have to hang in there long enough to enjoy it.

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

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Fiction, Mysteries
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
ISBN-10: ‎ 198217921X
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1982179212
ASIN: B0BW1YTM96
Listening Length: 13 hrs 33 mins
Narrator: CJ Wilson
Publication Date: September 5, 2023
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: The River We Remember [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University—before being kicked out for radical activities. After that, he logged timber, worked construction, tried his hand at freelance journalism, and eventually ended up researching child development at the University of Minnesota. He currently makes his living as a full-time author. He’s been married for over 40 years to a marvelous woman who is a retired attorney. He makes his home in St. Paul, a city he dearly loves.

Krueger writes a mystery series set in the north woods of Minnesota. His protagonist is Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Tamarack County and a man of mixed heritage—part Irish and part Ojibwe. His work has received a number of awards, including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize. His last five novels were all New York Times bestsellers.

“Ordinary Grace,” his stand-alone novel published in 2013, received the Edgar Award, given by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition for the best novel published in that year. “Manitou Canyon,” number fifteen in his Cork O’Connor series, was released in September 2016. Visit his website at http://www.williamkentkrueger.com.

Enjoy Your Sunday!

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon – #AudiobookReview – #HistoricalFiction

in Historical Fiction

Book Blurb:

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.

My Review:

I love it when an audiobook hooks immediately. So hard to put that earbud down! This novel tells the story of Martha Ballard, an early eighteenth-century midwife, who (unusually) not only reads and writes (and thinks for herself!), but has also been educated in medical conditions as well as local herbal tinctures.

Now in her fifties, she has successfully delivered hundreds of babies, not losing one baby or mother by malpractice. So as her reputation precedes her, it is not entirely unusual for her to be called to the scene of a suspicious death to render a forensic opinion of a man found frozen in the Kennebec River. Most jump to what might be the obvious cause of death, but Martha notices a number of issues that would point otherwise.

Her opinion was immediately countered by a young male doctor new to the village with little experience and less competence. His narcissistic ego is disagreeable and creates a strong antagonist sure to be reviled.

I was really taken with Martha. She is intelligent, thoughtful, kind, as well as strong-willed and independent. She has, from the beginning, kept a diary detailing her practice, including births, deaths, and callouts, and the diary becomes a historical record of the woman and her accomplishments.

“Like all mothers, I have long since mastered the art of nursing joy at one breast and grief at the other.”

She befriended and treated many women assaulted or bullied at the hands of husbands or others who at the time thought of women as little more than chattel. She recently treated a rape victim who decided to prosecute the men involved causing a huge uproar in the village and surrounds and, again, in opposition to the new doctor. I often wondered how she managed to protect herself facing her own husband’s lack of protection with his absences.

So many laws then weighed heavily against the female populace, rules and regulations that kept her impotent to even testify unless her husband was present.

The book evokes an atmosphere that chillingly cloaks the people and the village in suspicion and mistrust. It’s winter, everyone seeking protection from the elements, closed in, lack of communication except for gossip and hearsay. The simplest tasks are taken to monumental proportions to accomplish. Martha sacrifices over and over her own security, warmth, and protection in her calls from patients. At this point in her life, she and her long-standing husband have only one child left in the home. I wondered more than once how she survived, admiring her courage especially at that time in history given her oppositional stance in the rape trial.

The author shared her discovery of the woman, her diaries, and beautifully blended fact with fiction. Most of her diary entries were simple and didn’t elaborate, but remarkable in the decades covered bestowing knowledge to those who came after.

It was well-plotted and fast-paced with an amazing MC. Obviously, lots of research! But I wondered if it pushed disbelief regarding the latitude given her. I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Fiction, Women Sleuth Mysteries, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B0BXK3SRBL
Listening Length: 15 hrs 5 mins
Narrator: Ariel Lawhon, Jane Oppenheimer
Publication Date: December 5, 2023
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Frozen River [Amazon]
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