Tag Archives: Net Galley

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern*****

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Augusta Stern is about to turn eighty, and she’s being forced into retirement, darn it. Her beloved niece persuades her to leave New York and spend what remain of her golden years in a Florida seniors’ community. From there, a wave of surprising events unfolds, changing Augusta’s life.

My thanks go to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Loigman’s debut novel came in 2016, and as of now, she’s published three more. Every single one is golden. This author writes with warmth and intentionality, and although the first was wonderful, each subsequent one has been better than the last. And so, although I have gone on to read other novels by other authors since I finished this one, this is the one I’m still thinking about.

You see, in 1922, Augusta’s mother became gravely ill. Try though they might, neither the doctors nor her pharmacist father were able to help her, and she died. Augusta, her sister, and her father were all plunged into a dark and terrible place without her.  Great Aunt Esther showed up to run the household, and she brought with her a case full of herbs and tinctures; Esther was an apothecary. Her methods, which were sometimes unconventional, put her at odds with her nephew, but they got results, sometimes where conventional medicine had failed. Soon Augusta was spending her hours after school helping her father in the pharmacy, and sneaking out of bed in the middle of the night to observe Esther devising natural concoctions of her own. Esther declared Augusta to be her heir; she had a loving heart and a healer’s instincts.

Her social life was very limited, absorbed as she was with the family business, but the brightest spot in her day was when Irving Ripken, her father’s delivery boy, came to work. Often, they would talk as they worked; in time, they fell in love. Imagine her horror, then, when he abruptly married someone else and moved to Chicago! Augusta never recovered from the blow, and so she has never married.

Now, imagine her astonishment when sixty years later in Rallentando Springs, Irving shows up at the pool!

Much of what follows is what a reader might expect, but the details and character development take the story to a higher plane, and as we follow it, we also see the events of 1922, and these enable us to understand these characters and what drives them. There’s an unusually clever twist at the end, and it’s one that I absolutely do not see coming.

Ordinarily I would include ways in which the novel fell short or could be improved, but that’s impossible in this case. Loigman has spun magic for us from start to finish, and all I can do is bow in appreciation, and recommend this novel to you.

Identity Unknown, by Patricia Cornwell*****

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Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta series is among my favorites. Identity Unknown, the 28th in the series, is every bit as riveting as her earlier ones, and I am thrilled to have received a review copy. My thanks go to Grand Central Publishing, NetGalley, and Hachette Audio. This book is for sale now.

First, I have to offer a shout out to January LaVoy, who reads the audio version. I was unsure how I would feel about this one, because I read the first 27 installments with my own eyes, and so I had developed the voices for each character in my head. Would I be thrown by the way they were voiced by a professional? As it happens, no. The protagonist and her ever present sidekick, Pete Marino, who is now her brother-in-law, sound exactly as I had thought they would. Of course, much of this comes down to excellent writing. The voices of her niece, Lucy, who now occupies the top echelons of governmental spookdom, is softer and slightly higher pitched than I had expected, but it fits, and I made the mental transition easily. Kay’s husband, Benton, doesn’t have as deep a voice as I would have thought, but to make his voice that deep would require a second, male reader. All told, LaVoy does a fine job, and I didn’t feel distracted from the story.

I have begun reading the DRC when I am provided the audio, and so from there forward, I switch to the audio, referring occasionally to the DRC to make notes or highlight possible quotations. Once the climax comes, however, the tension gets the better of me, and because I know I can read faster than LaVoy can talk, I switch back to the text.

The premise is that there have been two deaths. The first is an old boyfriend of Kay’s, a man named Sal Giordano. They have remained friends over the years, and she saw him recently when she dropped off a basket of goodies for his birthday. He has been the victim of a death flight, which is new to me but apparently, according to Wiki, is a thing. It involves killing someone by dropping them from a plane.

Holy crap!

Now we get into aspects of the case that make it an even better October read, as well as darkly funny. The prose itself doesn’t appear to be intentionally humorous, and yet I cannot, for the life of me, imagine that Cornwell didn’t snicker a bit as she wrote it. The area where Sal is dropped is inside an abandoned amusement park with a Wizard of Oz theme. It’s been vandalized, and is seriously creepy. The higher ups within the U.S. military are in on the investigation, and so:

“’Let me make sure this is clear,’ General Gunner says to me. ‘He landed on the Yellow Brick Road in the middle of an apple orchard.’

“’Inside the Haunted Forest. Yes.’”

I couldn’t help myself. I squawked out loud!

Soon another corpse is identified, a child belonging to a pair of wealthy, powerful people that are also terrible human beings, and as it happens, horrible parents. The two deaths are connected. The parents throw their weight around and try to manipulate the investigation, but of course, they don’t succeed.

Ultimately it seems that one of the guilty parties is Kay’s nemesis, Carrie Grethen. Carrie was once Lucy’s true love; later, her evil nature became apparent, but nobody can seem to keep her locked up, and she has become Kay’s Moriarty. I mention this here because it is raised early in the story, so I don’t think it can be called a spoiler, but I won’t say more about that.

To the faithful readership, I will also say this. As the book opens, two of Cornwell’s old standbys, ones that I’d be happy to see her retire, appear. First, she has to be driven to the scene in a helicopter, but oh no, there’s a storm coming. I was irritated. Can Kay not go anywhere without there being a storm? Just once? Please? And then something has to be retrieved by diving, which harks back to an earlier book in which she’s attacked with a spear gun. But friends, neither of these turns out to be key to the story, and we’re done with them in a heartbeat, so be patient.

I like to read a few books at a time for variety, but once this one began, it edged out the others—except at bedtime, because when I go to bed, I need to sleep! It’s among her finest work, and I recommend it wholeheartedly to you.

The Message, by Ta-Nehisi Coates****

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Ta-Nehisi Coates is an eloquent writer, and I look forward to reading whatever he publishes. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

This book is brief, and it consists of four essays. The first and briefest is about returning to Howard University to teach writing. The second details his first trip to Africa, specifically Senegal; it’s surprising that it took him this long, he says, what with being raised in an Afrocentric home, the child of a Panther. But it’s expensive, it’s time consuming, and now, he can finally do it. As I read both of these, I admire the way he crafts an essay, but at the same time, I also feel as if I am not his intended audience; at times I feel almost as if I am listening in on someone else’s conversation. But I remind myself that I am reading this thing at the publisher’s invitation, so I push on, and it’s outstanding material.

The third essay is the one I enjoy the most, particularly because I had just finished reading a harrowing memoir about book banning. Coates attends a South Carolina school board meeting in which his own book, Between the World and Me, is being challenged. He’s invited by a teacher there that wants to continue using his book in her classroom, and he’s amazed at the assertions being made by some of the speakers in attendance, right in the shadow of George Floyd’s murder. And speaking of this, he says

“I understand the impulse to dismiss the import of the summer of 2020, to dismiss the ‘national conversations,’ the raft of TV specials and documentaries, even the protests themselves. Some of us see the lack of policy change and wonder if the movement itself was futile. But policy change is an end point, not an origin…and whereas white supremacy, like any other status quo, can default to the cliched claims and excuses for the world as it is—bad cops are rotten apples, American is guardian of the free world—we have the burden of crafting new language and stories that allow people to imagine that new policies are possible. And now, here in Chapin, some people, not most (it is hardly ever most), had, through the work of Black writers, begun that work of imagining.”

The final essay, which is also the lengthiest, is about his trip to the Middle East. At the outset he mentions his trip to the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, and seeing the vast Book of Names, which catalogs all of the nearly 5 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. But a few pages later he gets to the meat of the matter and decries the way that Israel is treating Hamas. No wait, that’s not the way he words it. He dislikes the treatment of the Palestinians that chose to be ruled by Hamas. Whatever. All I know is that when he states flatly that he isn’t interested in hearing the other side of this conflict, completely ignoring the pogrom that set this entire conflict in motion, he loses me. I skim the rest of the essay in case there’s a surprise for me somewhere in there, but of course, there isn’t. Bandwagons are easily joined, but I would have expected a writer of his caliber to think and write more critically.

So, should you read this book? There’s no denying that Coates is a skillful writer, and the essay regarding censorship is worth reading all by itself. And in that spirit, I won’t say that you shouldn’t read this because I happen to disagree with the last nearly fifty percent of the book; but when you do so, keep your brain engaged and don’t take everything he says at face value.

Phantom Orbit, by David Ignatius****

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“When we know a secret that could have devastating consequences, what should we do?”

David Ignatius writes spy thrillers, and is one of the most reliable authors I’ve read within that genre. I can always count on an absorbing read. Phantom Orbit centers on Ivan Volkov, a young man from Russia that goes to Beijing to study science, and an American CIA officer named Edith Ryan. They come together and then part, because while their interests and personalities draw them together, their obligations to the lands of their births pull them apart.

My thanks go to NetGalley and W.W. Norton and Company for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Our chief protagonist, Ivan, is courted by the Chinese, who want to recruit him and his brilliant mind to their space program, but he is summoned home when his mother becomes ill, and once he is there, he comes under intense pressure to remain in Russia. Later, once he has lost almost everything, he finds a chance for redemption.

Edith, on the other hand, is faced with every possible glass ceiling and endless sexism in her work, and nobody will take her ideas seriously. Eventually she gives up on the Agency and returns to civilian life in the States.

This story grabbed my attention from the get go and held it all the way through. I wasn’t able to guess what the resolution would be.

That said, this also isn’t the best he’s written. For those new to this author, I recommend The Quantum Spy. For Ignatius’s faithful readers, and for those fond enough of espionage thrillers to want more than one such novel, this book is recommended.

Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout*****

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“Lucy said, ‘So what is the point of this story?’

“Olive laughed. She really laughed at that. ‘Lucy Barton, the stories you told me—as far as I could tell—had very little point to them. Okay, okay, maybe they had subtle points to them. I don’t know what the point is to this story!’

“’People,’ Lucy said quietly, leaning back. ‘People and the lives they lead. That’s the point.’

“’Exactly,’ Olive nodded.”

Elizabeth Strout’s fifth entry into her Amgash series, Tell Me Everything, feels like a homecoming of sorts, as she integrates the main characters from all of her earlier novels, or most of them anyway, into a single volume. Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, the Burgess Boys—both of them! It’s a wonderful thing to put them, or some of them, together in the same room for a conversation, or have two of them become friends and take walks together. It’s a lot of fun for her readers, and it was probably a lot of fun to write, too.

My thanks go to Random House and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

As is true with most books by Strout, the book isn’t—as the quote above suggests—so much about events as it is about the characters that live them. Publicists can call this a murder mystery if they want to, but if you are a new reader and you believe them, you will be disappointed, because the mystery is almost incidental to the story as a whole. The man under suspicion is living his life, and we read about him; the fact that his mother died under suspicious circumstances isn’t nearly as important as the life this poor fellow has been living. Meanwhile, there are a number of other plot threads that are just as important, and most of them have nothing to do with him or his family.

In fact, if I were to draw a theme from this story, it would perhaps be friendship; you might also make a case for fear. For example, Lucy tells Bob Burgess on one of their walks that “none of us are on sturdy soil, we just tell ourselves we are.” And then “when Bob thought about the state of the country these days, he sometimes had the image of a huge tractor trailer rumbling down the highway and the wheels, one by one, falling off.”

This is an easy theme to relate to; much of the polarization of the United States right now has to do with two main ideological camps, and a few smaller ones, being utterly terrified of what will happen next if the wrong people come to power; of course, opinions vary on exactly who the wrong ones are.

Nevertheless, I don’t see that as the main theme. The earliest Amgash books absolutely oozed anxiety. I felt as if I needed to take something before I read them, they were so fearful in their essences. But this story isn’t like that. Here, there’s a sense of acceptance, and also a sense that friendships, and the people inside of those friendships, can help one another.

So despite the mystery thread, this is what Lucy and Olive say that their stories are about: people and their lives.  It follows that those of us that have loved the earlier volumes will love this one even more, because Strout is doing what she does best: she sculpts characters so visceral that I feel I would know them if I passed by them in the grocery store.

Can you read this one as a stand-alone? Well, sure you can. I won’t try to stop you. But your experience will be richer and more satisfying if you treat yourself to some of the earlier stories. Some of them are rough reads, and I myself haven’t read everything this author has written, but if you grab a couple of them at least, particularly the Amgash and Olive books, you’ll appreciate this one more.

Highly recommended to all that cherish outstanding literary fiction.

Let Us Descend, by Jesmyn Ward*****

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Reading Jesmyn Ward always hurts so good. In Let Us Descend, she conveys the heartbreak and sense of betrayal a young girl, Annis, faces when she and her mother are sold separately by their owner—who is also her father–and the ways that she copes, and also the ways she is helped by the spirits of her ancestors.

My thanks go to Scribner and Net Galley for the invitation to read and review. I’m sorry to be so late here, and am grateful that the literary world has recognized this book for the masterpiece that it is.

You may have seen other reviews in which I complain and gnash my teeth over historical inaccuracies; sometimes I rant over an author’s failure to portray a child in a way that is developmentally inaccurate. There will be none of that here. Ward has taken the time and done the research, and so her well crafted characters aren’t compromised by sloppy background details. I had to take this story in small bites because it is excruciatingly sorrowful.  For part of it I listened to the audio version; this is a treat in itself, as Ward reads her own novel.

Some reviewers have taken issue with the amount of magical realism Ward employs. I disagree with them. How can any novelist portray such a story and such a character as Annis with any glimmer of hope, unless they employ these literary devices? Does anyone really want to read a book that is miserable at the outset, miserable in the middle, and miserable even at its bitter, wretched conclusion? Without hope, there’s not much incentive to keep reading, nor would it have been satisfying to write; but Ward will not and does not revise history simply to make her readers more comfortable. There was only one way to tell this story and be true to history and her characters, and Ward found it.

Yes, it’s a rough read, but it’s so well written that many readers must have smiled through their tears. Know that, of necessity, this story is absolutely loaded with triggers; assuming that you can navigate them without coming undone, I highly recommend this story to you.

That Librarian, by Amanda Jones****

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If ever a clarion call were needed in defense of the First Amendment in general and libraries in particular, that time would be now. Amanda Jones is an educator in a small Louisiana town, where she has lived all of her life. When a censorship battle presented itself, primarily at the behest of organized outsiders with an agenda, she turned up and spoke in a public meeting; in doing so, she unwittingly entered the most chilling chamber of horrors one might imagine.

My thanks go to Bloomsbury and Net Galley for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Amanda describes herself as a committed Christian and a political moderate; she blushingly confesses to have voted for Trump in 2016. How could a Southern Baptist teacher and librarian suddenly find herself at the heart of a maelstrom, being referred to online as a pedophile, a groomer, and a member of the “woke” left? In a place in which outsiders hold less credibility than those with longstanding roots, how could so many native residents be convinced that pornography is being peddled to children by one of their own? Of course, the only way to create such an atmosphere is through fear and convincing lies.

“Book censors will often say there are books containing pornographic, or sexually explicit, material in children’s sections of the library to rile up public fear. They decry the need to protect children from the evil smut they say is next to Dr. Seuss books. As if a kid could be looking for The Very Hungry Caterpillar and whoops, there’s The Joy of Sex or The Kama Sutra right next to it. That’s never the case. Libraries have collection development policies for ordering books, and appropriate books are placed in the appropriate section. Public libraries do not purchase pornography. Adult books are not in the library’s children section, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.”

The American Library Association has guidelines for challenging books. This is essentially what Amanda tells those in attendance at the meeting called by book burners that evening. She is one of more than twenty other locals that show up for the same purpose.

What occurs at this meeting turns out to be a formula frequently used by the extreme right. A page of alarming material is blown up on a big screen for attendees to see. The presenter explains that this very book was found in an area easily accessed by children, right here in the public library in Livingston Parish. It’s a lie. The book isn’t there at all. But most people are decent and tell the truth most of the time; it doesn’t occur to audience members that this is a complete fabrication.

Why Amanda was chosen by these sinister visitors to be the sacrificial lamb is anyone’s guess. Perhaps she is more persuasive than others, or better organized in her remarks. Who knows? By the following day, social media has blown up with vile, horrifying accusations against her. Worst of all, there are people that she has known all of her life and considered friends, that add approving reactions to these poisonous lies. People she always believed would stand up for her, disappear instead, or join the opposition. Her family, her closest friends, and her fellow librarians across the country are the core of her defense, which eventually finds its way into the courtroom. Fellow educators at work? Not so much.

Although this takes place in the deep South, Amanda points out that these challenges are taking place across the country, with the ultimate goal of defunding public libraries. She mentioned a challenge in my hometown, Seattle, Washington, and I gasped. And so, this is an issue that must be monitored, and libraries and free speech defended, by all liberty loving readers everywhere.

The first half of the book is beautifully organized and compelling. I believe my jaw dropped when she wrote of sleeping with a shotgun under her bed, and checking for bombs or tracking devices on the undercarriage of her car. Death threats? Oh honey. Yes. The second half is also good, but could probably use a bit of tightening up. However, were I in her shoes, I would no doubt ramble endlessly.

This would make a terrific movie, and if well done, would certainly deliver the message to still more people.

I wholeheartedly recommend this memoir to all readers that support libraries and the First Amendment.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles, by Rufi Thorpe****

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Margo’s Got Money Troubles, by Rufi Thorpe, is a bold, inventive, and very funny novel about a young woman cut adrift in a difficult, expensive world. My thanks go to NetGalley and William Morrow for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Margo is the daughter of a Hooters waitress and a former pro wrestler, an absentee father with a family of his own; her mother had been his woman on the side. Consequently, Margo has always understood that she would have to hit the ground running when she grew up, and so she’s enrolled in a junior college. When the brief affair with her English professor leaves her pregnant, she has nobody reliable to advise her. The women she confides in urge her to terminate the pregnancy, and of course, the professor does, too; yet Margo likes the idea of becoming a mother, and it’s her fetus. Nobody can make her do anything. She decides to keep it.

Her mother is about to marry a man with money and conservative values, and she sees Margo as a loose cannon that just might upset the whole ship, so she tells her to terminate or be cut off.

Wow, Mom. Really?

Margo’s roommates hadn’t agreed to share an apartment with a baby. They need to sleep! They have to get up early!

Early on, I’m rolling my eyes. Part of me is thinking that Margo is about as dumb as they come; part of me is wondering why no author in this entire world is writing—or, more likely, why no major publishing house is publishing—novels in which a young woman chooses to have an abortion and take back her body and her life. But I’m overthinking, because soon, Margo—who after all, is just young, naïve, and rudderless—admits her error. She loves her little boy, but she had no idea he would be so expensive, or that motherhood would be so difficult. She tells her father, who re-enters her life as her mother steps away,

 “’I shouldn’t have had him,’ as though some rip cord had been pulled inside her. ‘I know that, okay? Everyone told me it would ruin my life and it did. They were right, and I was stupid, and I didn’t get it. Okay? But now I’m here.’ And her father, who strangely enough becomes the most reliable adult in her life, says, ‘Yes. Now we’re here.’”

Later, Margo will comment that nothing can make a person pro-choice like having a baby.

Margo has been waiting tables, but she can’t find child care, and when she brings the baby to work, she’s fired. And the truth is, she doesn’t like leaving her baby. Then one day, while looking at her naked self in a full length mirror, she observes that she has huge boobs for the first time in her life. Men would pay to see this. She opens an account on OnlyFans.

And so this controversial choice becomes the crux of the story. Some friends reject her, and her mother has really had it with her now. But there are a lot of meaty conversations that are thought provoking, and so, even though this old lady schoolteacher reviewer is mighty uncomfortable reading about an online sex worker’s film process, there are related questions that cannot be ignored. For example, Jinx—her father—advises her against it, saying that she shouldn’t get mixed up with these kinds of girls, and she asks him, “What are ‘those kinds of girls’?” And it’s true. A man can send his dick pix out into the world any number of times and places, and whereas many will consider these gross, or obscene, which they are, how many people will condemn the guy’s entire character, his moral fiber, for having done it? So the double standard is screaming to be recognized.

Margo goes through a lot of grief, defending custody of her son when the skeevy professor resurfaces, as well as having to deal with housing crises and other problems. But the central issue lurking in the shadows is that of a young mother choosing sex work as a career.

I have to tell you quite frankly that I was way out of my comfort zone through much of this book. I am probably not part of its target audience, despite the fact that I was approached to cover it. Partway in, I considered not finishing it, but the quality of the writing is so strong that I kept going, and I’m glad I did.

The story is told from a third person omnipotent perspective, but it shifts in a surprising and funny way, and that’s all I will say about that, lest I ruin it. I wonder from time to time if we have an unreliable narrator, but this is more than that. This unusual point of view a brave choice, and I think she carries it off well.

There are a lot of worthwhile discussions that can spring from this novel; it’s fertile territory, if you’ll pardon the expression, for book clubs. It’s also being adapted for Apple TV. I recommend this book for any feminist that likes to laugh, and isn’t afraid to think outside the box.

Spirit Crossing, by William Kent Krueger

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Spirit Crossing is the spellbinding new novel in the Cork O’Connor series by William Kent Krueger. The book starts with two missing women, and an accidental discovery of a fresh grave. Readers faithful to the series will recognize the characters; there are enough of them, mostly related to one another, to provide depth and interest, without confusing the reader or making the plot too complex.

Lucky me, I read it free and early. My thanks go to NetGalley and Atria books for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

The story begins innocently enough, with the series protagonist, Cork, out berry picking with his son, son-in-law, and grandson, who is known by the Ojibwe nickname Waaboo. While searching for blueberries, they come across a fresh grave. Waaboo sees the victim standing before him, as if she is still alive, and he’s distraught because she is so unhappy. Waaboo is not the first one in his family to have this ability; nobody doubts that he sees what he says he sees. And so the men immediately wonder whether this is the grave of Olivia Hamilton, daughter of a wealthy Anglo, who’s been reported missing with massive headlines everywhere; or that of Crystal Two Knives, a missing Native girl whose name barely elicits more than a yawn from law enforcement.

And so right away, we are looking at not only the characters, but the longtime issue of missing Native girls and women, and the way that law enforcement neglects their cases for those whose families have money and connections.

One of the things I admire most about Krueger’s writing is the way that he incorporates urgent issues that especially impact the place where he lives—northern Minnesota—into the plot, blending them in so seamlessly that the reader isn’t distracted, because the issues are part and parcel of the mystery to be solved. He does the same thing with pipeline protests similar to the Dakota pipeline that lit up the headlines in recent years. Other aspects of the story include Ojibwe (Chippewa) culture and history, which is part of every book in the series, since most of the family is Ojibwe, and in this case, a character with a brain tumor. When significant events occur and the woman with cancer is the only one to witness them, did they really happen, or is it the brain tumor talking? This adds a layer of psychological tension not present in most of Krueger’s book; I’m not a fan of that subgenre, and am pleased to see that this doesn’t take over the plotline. It’s dealt with tastefully and without sensationalism.

Those that read my reviews know that I have an interest in seeing how authors develop child characters, particularly in a story such as this one, in which the child plays a major role. It makes me crazy when an otherwise competent author searches for shortcuts, such as a child that’s precocious or gifted, to explain away their own failure to craft the child’s character in a way that is honest developmentally. This is one more reason I enjoy this series. Yes, Waaboo has unusual powers, but he is still a small boy. The notion of going home without blueberries is a major blow. Tears threaten. I love the way Krueger develops this kid, and I can’t wait to see more of him in the future.

My one criticism involves a specific passage between the 88th and 90th percentiles, just as we rise toward the climax. Without going into spoilerish details, I will say that one character does something that everyone in the family agrees they must not do, and without any explanation, everyone in the family is fine with them doing it this time. This, of course, puts the character in danger, which anyone that’s paying attention can predict the very moment the action commences. It’s clumsy in a way that is atypical of this author, and I have no idea why he makes the choice he does, but it affects my enjoyment of the book, because suddenly I am not thinking as much about the characters as I am about the author. Having this occur a split second before the climax is especially grating.

On the other hand, I am picky. Very picky. I suspect that this passage will annoy only a small percentage of readers.

I do recommend this book, and this series, to those that love a good mystery. Although it can be read as a stand-alone, those with the time and inclination might enjoy going back a few titles, or even to the beginning of the series.