Coffee & Books discussion

The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman – 4****
Four septuagenarian residents of a luxury retirement community form the Thursday Murder Club. Gosh but I loved this! It was NOT “cute” … the four friends are absolutely serious about this investigation, but they each have issues, and secrets, that impact their work. In addition to the four friends, there are some twenty other characters with significant contributions to the total novel. Osman gave us some thrilling scenes, as well as scenes of great tenderness, and some humor to lighten the mood every once in a while. A complete delight of a book!
LINK to my full review

No Land To Light On – Yara Zgheib – 4****
A young Syrian couple, expecting their first baby, is separated by the randomness of political decisions made by others. This hit close to home for me, as I know a couple in a similar situation. I am so sorry I had to miss my F2F book club discussion! This is a book that made me think, and I’ll be pondering it for some time.
LINK to my full review

The Painted Drum – Louise Erdrich – 3.5***
The significance of a particular, rare, drum is revealed in the novel. From the woman who discovers it in a dusty attic, to the current-day residents of the Ojibwe reservation, to the now-deceased grandfather who originally fashioned the drum, Erdrich gives us a story full of tradition, loss and love. I could have done without Faye’s storyline, however.
LINK to my full review

I finished my book called The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth

Murder In the Sentier – Cara Black – 3***
Book number three in the Aimée LeDuc Investigations mystery series. This time it’s personal, as Aimée tries to find out about her mother, an alleged former terrorist who served time in prison. I like Aimée as a lead character. I like that she is intelligent, independent, resilient, strong, and more than capable when it comes to defending herself. But I was not a great fan of this storyline.
LINK to my full review

Rilla Of Ingleside – L M Montgomery – 4****
Book eight in the “Anne of Green Gables” series focuses on Anne’s youngest child. Rilla is fifteen, starting to get interested in boys and dances, but needing to worry about her brothers and friends now that World War I has started. There are young women today, going through many of the issues that Rilla experiences: first love, worry about a brother sent to fight overseas, grief over friends or relatives who’ve died too young. I love how Rilla rises to the challenges imposed by the war; I see a lot of the young Anne in Rilla.
LINK to my full review

I finished my book called Vanished in the Mountains by Tanya Stowe

Boundary Waters – William Kent Krueger – 3***
This is book two in the series and I’m really enjoying getting to know Cork O’Connor, his family and his community. A woman is missing in the North Woods, and Cork is in a race against time, weather, the FBI, and mobsters to find her first. I really appreciate how Krueger writes about the North Woods. The landscape is practically a character – so vibrant and alive and sometimes menacing.
LINK to my full review

I finished my book called The Fixer by Joseph Finder

Back Of Beyond – C J Box – 3.5***
This is the first book in a new series by C J Box. Cody Hoyt is an alcoholic and a former big-city cop who is barely hanging on to his job as an investigator with the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Department. This is a fast-paced thriller with some twists and turns I didn’t see coming. Box moves back and forth from the perspective of Cody and his partner, Larry, to the perspective of the people on the “back of beyond” tour in Yellowstone National Park. I particularly liked the way Box wrote Gracie Sullivan; she’s a smart girl, a keen observer, and quick-thinking.
LINK to my full review

A Discovery of witches by Deborah Harkness

When Dimple Met Rishi – Sandhya Menon – 3***
This is a cute YA romcom featuring two young Indian-American students who are trying to keep their parents happy while pursuing their own dreams. Things get off to a rocky start, but their friendship slowly builds to something more … or does it? Told in alternating viewpoints, Menon gives the reader a satisfying and balanced romance.
LINK to my full review

When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky – Margaret Verble – 3.5***
1920s Tennessee is the setting for this novel. What interesting characters! Verble weaves through elements of history not often covered in school from ancient bison tracks, to the forced expulsion of the Cherokee (Trail of Tears) to Jim Crow. She deftly incorporates magical realism, especially by using the ghost of Little Elk, a long-deceased warrior who longs to communicate with Two Feathers. I was captivated by this unique story.
LINK to my full review

Yule Be Dead – Lorraine Bartlett with Gayle Leeson – 2**
Book number five in the Victoria Square cozy mystery series. Usually in a cozy you have an amateur sleuth who is somehow implicated, and therefore feels compelled to investigate despite repeated warnings from the police to stay out of it. Here, I have no idea why Katie feels compelled to stick her nose into the mess. Also, not at all interested in the “crafty artisans” of Katie’s business. Art made from dryer lint? Really? Not likely to continue this series. I like the author’s Booktown Mysteries (written under pen name Lorna Barrett) better.
LINK to my full review

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane – Lisa See – 4****
This work of historical fiction focuses on the indigenous Akha people who make their living harvesting tea in the mountains near the borders with Laos and Myanmar. Li-yan is a young girl who follows her family tradition, but dreams of more. Lisa See has crafted a marvelous story of perseverance, cultural difference, and the enduring bonds of the mother-daughter relationship!
LINK to my full review

I finished my book called Wreck the Halls by Tessa Bailey

Nemesis – Agatha Christie – 3***
Miss Marple is up to her usual tricks. She is a keen observer and an astute judge of character. She fully understands that people underestimate her – or even completely ignore her. She is only an old woman, after all. HA!
LINK to my full review

Finished (1884) by Edwin A. Abbott (1838-1926). 3***

I finished my book called The Doctor's Widow by Daniel Hurst

Shadow Prey – John Sandford – 2.5**
Book number two in the Lucas Davenport series went a bit off the rails. Sandford wanted to include a social justice message, and the result was a disappointment. The message wasn’t all that clear or informative; the thriller plot was frequently derails by the message. Not his best effort.
LINK to my full review

Started King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo.

I finished my book called Season of Wonder by RaeAnne Thayne

I finished my book called Sugar Pine Trail by RaeAnne Thayne

I finished my book called Jingle All the Way by Debbie Macomber

I finished my book called A Lake House Holiday by Megan Squires

The Innocent – Harlan Coben – 3.5***
Matt Hunter’s an ex-con working as a paralegal and making a go of it. He always maintained that the fight that led to his conviction for murder was really self-defense. Now a puzzling set of occurrences have the police suspecting Matt of another murder (or two). Coben knows how to craft a fast-paced thriller that kept me turning pages, though I nearly gave up in the first third, the plot was too convoluted. And I hated Matt’s wife, Olivia.
LINK to my full review

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Across the River and Into the Trees – Ernest Hemingway – 3***
I’ve been a fan of Hemingway’s since I first read The Old Man and the Sea when I was about thirteen. This isn’t his best-known work, and I read it only to fulfill a challenge to read a book that was a bestseller the year I was born. Still, there is something about his writing that captures my attention. The short declarative sentences make the work immediate and bring this reader right into the story. But the older I get the more I’m disturbed by the way the women are portrayed … or more accurately, but the way Hemmingway writes the male/female relationships. Well, it fulfilled several reading challenges.
LINK to my full review

The Edge of the Earth – Christina Schwarz – 4****
The book jacket synopsis hints at danger in a remote location, not just from the elements but an unexpected presence hiding in the wilderness. But this is so much more than a thriller based on isolation and the fear of the unknown. Trudy is a wonderful character, but the character that most surprised me was Euphemia (Mrs. Crawley). While I saw the critical scene coming a mile off, I still enjoyed reading it and seeing how Schwarz would craft this denouement.
LINK to my full review

Infinite Country – Patricia Engle – 4****
Engle has crafted a story of immigration and emigration, of oppression and prejudice, of hopes and dreams, and of the bonds of family. The storyline moves back and forth in time from current-day adolescent Talia, to her young parents’ first meeting and falling in love, to their struggles in the USA, and how Talia, a US born citizen, wound up in Columbia with her father rather than in New Jersey with her mother and two siblings. We see the sacrifices made by parents for the sake of their children, but also the hurt and feelings of abandonment suffered by the children separated from a parent.
LINK to my full review

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The Devil’s Highway – Luis Alberto Urrea – 5*****
In May 2001, twenty-six men tried to cross into the USA from Mexico along a stretch of desert known as “The Devil’s Highway.” Only twelve made it out alive. This was a horrifying episode and Urrea’s reporting of it in this book earned a nomination for a Pullitzer. He handles the details of the journey with competing emotions: hope, outrage, compassion, frustration, despair. He is honest about what happened and fair when reporting both the positions of “The 26” and of the Border Patrol agents.
LINK to my full review

I finished my book called The Christmas Party by Mikayla Davids

orphan x

Solito – Javier Zamora – 5***** and a ❤
This is a memoir of the author’s own harrowing journey from El Salvador to the USA when he was only nine years old. He started out with joy and excitement, anticipating a couple of weeks of adventure ending in a reunion with his parents. But the reality was a months-long feat of endurance, deprivation and courage.
LINK to my full review

American Dirt – Jennine Cummins – 4****
Lydia runs a bookstore in Acapulco. When her journalist husband publishes a profile of the head of the local drug cartel, their family is in the crosshairs. Lydia has to flee with her son, and there is no one she can truly trust. This is a gripping story. Lydia is an intelligent woman, but she is not equipped with the street smarts for this journey. Luck and the kindness of a few strangers, plus her basic privilege (as a white, middle-class, educated woman with money in the bank), all serve her well. It was a gripping read, but I have some issues with the book.
LINK to my full review

Time Was Soft There – Jeremy Mercer – 3***
Several bad decision derailed Mercer’s journalism career in Canada, so he ran to Paris, where he stumbled upon Shakespeare & Co on a rainy afternoon and wound up being offered a bed in one of the many rooms of this crowded book shop. I found this very entertaining. I loved reading about his adventures scrounging for the cheapest food, picnics with friends along the Seine, the joys of free museums, and the eccentric residents of the shop, not least of which was the owner.
LINK to my full review

The Dictionary of Lost Words – Pip Williams – 3.5***
”Some words are more important than others – I learned this, growing up in the Scriptorium. But it took me a long time to understand why.” Esme is a wonderful character, maturing from an innocent child to curious adolescent to determined young woman. And living at a time when the Women’s Suffrage Movement was very active in England, and World War I was looming. I like the way that Williams puts the focus on the “missing women” in history. She’s far from strident, but she is insistent and caused this reader to think about all the missing women is “HIS”tory.
LINK to my full review

And now for a little holiday fluff ...



Candy Cane Murder – Joanne Fluke, Laura Levine and Leslie Meier – 2.5***
Three short novels make up this anthology. Candy Cane Murder (Fluke), The Dangers of Candy Canes (Levine) and Candy Canes of Christmas Past (Meier).
The first is a typical Hannah Swenson cookie cozy. I didn’t like the second at all. The last was light on the mystery but still a charming holiday tale.
LINK to my full review

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Her Christmas Cowboy – Jessica Clare – 3***
Caleb is painfully shy around women, and not all that open even around his brothers. But the moment he saw new local school teacher Amy, he knew she was the woman for him. Of course, there’s at least one jerk in the picture, and Amy, recovering from a bad divorce, is vulnerable. But Caleb is just so sweet and considerate and it’s inevitable that they’ll get together and the sex will be incredible for both of them. Well, what did you expect? It’s a Christmas Cowboy Romance … capital ‘C’ and capital ‘R’. Fun to read and a great escape.
LINK to my full review

The Haunting Season – Bridget Collins, et al – 3.5***
Subtitle: Eight Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights. I enjoy short stories. I marvel at how much a talented author can cram into them. No wasted words. No over-the-top exposition. No cast of thousands. In this case they are, as the title hints, “haunting” tales featuring ghosts, monsters, witches, and evil spirits. All are set during winter months, with several being set around Christmas. But there is no holiday cheer here. They are Spooky with a capital ‘S’!
LINK to my full review

Once Upon a December – Amy E Reichert – 3***
This is a delightful holiday rom-com set in a magical Julemarked in Milwaukee (my home town). Besides the wonderful fairytale at the heart of this story, I really enjoyed all the references to my city. Reichert is something of a foodie and an unabashed Milwaukee booster, so it’s no surprise that she takes her readers on a little culinary tour of Milwaukee. Good think I was out of state when reading it, or I would’ve been venturing forth to sample all those goodies she mentioned.
LINK to my full review

I finished my book called Home for the Holidays by Sara Richardson

Aunty Lee’s Delights – Ovidia Yu – 2.5**
I had hopes for this first in a new cozy mystery series. I’ve visited Singapore and love the cuisine. And I love cozy mysteries with fun amateur sleuths. But this one just fell flat for me. I thought Yu was trying too hard to craft a complicated mystery and NOT doing enough to endear Aunty Lee and her trusty sidekick/maid, Nina, to the reader.
LINK to my full review

My review for Never Lie by Freida McFadden

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Have to get in just a couple more Holiday-themed reads ... 'Tis the Season!



The Christmas Dare – Lori Wilde – 2**
Two immature people with lust in their hearts, but somehow think this is love. There are some nice steamy sex scenes to distract from all the drama of Kelsey’s unhealthy relationship with her narcissistic mother. I think Wilde was trying too hard to be “relevant.” Just give me schmaltz (and sex)… that’s all I’m looking for when I pick up books such as this.
LINK to my full review

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The Santa Klaus Murder – Mavis Doriel Hay – 3***
This is a classic locked-room mystery. There are plenty of suspects, not only family members, but two male guests, as well as Sir Osmond’s private secretary and other staff members. It moves a bit slowly by today’s standards for the genre, but I was engaged and interested throughout.
LINK to my full review

The Ship Of Brides – Jojo Moyes – 3***
In 1946 some 650 women embarked on a six-weeks long journey to Great Britain, leaving Sydney harbor aboard the HMS Victorious, a royal navy aircraft carrier. The women were married to British service men whom they’d met when those men were briefly stationed in Australia during WW2. This is fact. Moyes own grandmother was one of those women and her story inspired this novel. I enjoyed this story, though I thought it was a bit too long.
LINK to my full review

You Sound Like a White Girl – Julissa Arce – 3.5***
Arce came to the USA from Mexico as an eleven-year-old. She learned English, excelled at school, finished college, and was hired by Goldman Sachs. But she never felt that she fit in. Her take on this is that the white people in power will never allow brown and black people to actually assimilate in the USA culture. Arce gives many examples of ways in which white people have harmed indigenous populations, but the tone of her arguments was so angry and uncompromising that it turned me off. She has some valid points to make in this book, but in the end, I think “she doth protest too much.”
LINK to my full review

My review for The Last Word by Taylor Adams

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi – 4****
A particular coffee shop in a Tokyo back-alley has been serving customers for more than one hundred years. More than the coffee, the shop offers a unique experience – the chance to travel back in time to a particular moment. This was just a delightful surprise. I quickly became invested in each character’s life and his or her reasons for traveling.
LINK to my full review