Tag Archives: secrets

The Family Recipe, by Carolyn Huynh*****

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“We all need to feel needed. Otherwise, what’s the point of living?”

Carolyn Huynh made her authorial debut in 2022 with The Fortunes of Jaded Women. It was one of my favorite novels not only of that year, but of all the thousand-plus galleys I have read since I began reviewing. She’s back again with The Family Recipe, and it’s every bit as good as the first. My thanks go to NetGalley and Atria Books for the invitation to read and review, but make no mistake: I would have hunted this thing down and bought it with my Social Security check if it came down to it. I wouldn’t have been sorry, either.

This book is available to the public now.

Once again, our protagonists are Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans, mostly women, and once again, they are siblings and other family members that must come together; it isn’t a voluntary reunion. And that’s where the similarities between the first book and this one end.

Duc Tran, the patriarch, has laid out the terms by which his children may inherit his fortune. Once upon a time, he was the Vietnamese sandwich king, and in order to become his heir, each of his four daughters must relocate to a city she doesn’t want to live in, and revive a down-at-the-heels restaurant in a now undesirable end of town. It’s a contest; that is, unless Duc’s one son, Jude, succeeds in getting married within the one year’s time limit of the contest. If he can do that, he wins. (His sisters aren’t worried; who would marry Jude?)

The story is told from several points of view; these include the siblings, their uncle—a shady lawyer, and Duc’s best friend; their mother, who abandoned them when they were small, when her mental health collapsed, and never went back; Duc’s second wife; and briefly, Duc himself, who mostly serves as a mysterious figure that doesn’t even return to the States to lay out his children’s requirements, sending their uncle as his proxy.  As the story unfolds, we learn more about each sibling, and about the traumas they have experienced, as well as their successes.

The thing that makes it work so well is Huynh’s unerring sense of timing. It’s a dramatic tale, but it’s shot full of humor, as we see at the outset, when we learn the sisters’ names. Their father was a huge fan of the Beatles, and so the girls are named Jane, Paulina, Georgia, and (wait for it…) Bingo!

There are plenty of twists and turns, and the dialogue crackles. The internal monologues are mesmerizing. This book would make a fantastic movie.

Since I was reading this galley digitally, I highlighted quotes that I thought I’d like to use in this review, but there are 28 of them. Obviously, I cannot share them all here, but let that inform you, if nothing else here has, how much I love this book.

Highly recommended to anyone that has a beating heart, at least a passing interest in Vietnamese-American culture and/or family stories, and can use a few good laughs.

Good Dirt, by Charmaine Wilkerson*****

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Charmaine Wilkerson is the author of the massively successful Black Cake. Her sophomore effort, Good Dirt, carries some of the same components—an impending marriage, a family heirloom, secrets and betrayals—but is nevertheless a very different story, and it’s an even better one. My thanks go to Random House Ballantine and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public on January 28, 2025.

Our protagonist is Ebby Freeman, which is short for Ebony. She lives with her parents in an affluent neighborhood in New England, but there was a fourth family member, her brother Baz, who was murdered during a home invasion; Ebby witnessed all of it, and has long carried the guilt of survivors. Could her ten year old self have done something to save Baz?

Now Ebby is grown, and plans to be married, but things don’t go as anticipated.

As in her previous novel, Wilkerson packs so many points of view into the story that I eventually stop counting, and although I am skeptical about this choice through much of the book, by the end I have to admit that she has carried it off nicely. Some points of view are urgently necessary to carry the plot forward; others, like that of the intended groom, Henry, are straight-up hilarious in places. Once again, we move not only between points of view, but time periods as well, reaching back into an earlier century, when some of her ancestors were enslaved. These passages aren’t entertaining, but they are necessary to provide clarity and urgency.

Ordinarily, I don’t read stories with wealthy protagonists, and make no mistake, Ebby’s family has a great deal of money; but having the family be African-American, and self-made rather than heirs to massive, often ill gained fortunes helped a great deal. Ultimately it was easy to bond with Ebby. When she experienced pain and rejection, I felt it, too. I carried her around in my head in a way that I usually don’t; over 1,000 reviews are in my rearview mirror, and only the truly special ones take hold of me as this one has.

Highly recommended.

The Briar Club, by Kate Quinn*****

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I had never read a novel by Kate Quinn, but my friends on Goodreads raved about it and I was overcome by the fear of missing out. Happily, I was not too late to get a review copy; my thanks go to NetGalley and William Morrow, along with my apologies for lateness. From the get go, I could tell this book was too good to speed read, and so I set it aside for a time when I could sink into it and appreciate it. This fall I was able to get the audio version from the library to help me along; narrator Saskia Maarleveld is outstanding, and those that enjoy hearing their books should strongly consider ordering that format.

Our story takes place just after World War II, and it takes place almost entirely within the confines of Briarwood House, a women’s boarding house owned by the selfish, odious Mrs. Nilsson. The book’s prologue comes to us from the point of view of the house, and for a brief spell I wonder whether the house itself will become the main character. It doesn’t, and that’s probably just as well, because the women that rent its rooms, along with Pete and Lina, Nilsson’s two children, fill the story quite nicely, and all are beautifully developed, some more than others, with Nilsson herself being the only truly static character. In fact, I could argue that even the house’s character is developed somewhat.

I seldom do this, but the prologue is so juicy that I’m going to reprint a considerable chunk of it here, because Quinn’s voice—and okay, the house’s—provide a more convincing incentive to read on, than anything I can offer:

If these walls could talk. Well, they may not be talking, but they are certainly listening. And watching…Now its walls smell of turkey, pumpkin pie, and blood, and the house is shocked down to its foundations. Also, just a little bit thrilled. This is the most excitement Briarwood House has had in decades. Murder. Murder here in the heart of sleepy white picket fence Washington, D.C.! And on Thanksgiving, too. Not that the house is terribly surprised by that; it’s held enough holidays to know that when you throw all that family together and mix with too much rum punch and buried resentment, blood is bound to be shed sometimes…This was a very enthusiastic murder, the house muses. Not one moment’s hesitation from the hand swinging that blade…Briarwood House doesn’t like Mrs. Nilsson. Hasn’t liked her since she first crossed the threshold as a bride, complaining before she’d even shaken the rice out of her hair that the halls were too narrow (My halls! Too narrow!), and still doesn’t like her twenty years down the road. No one else in this kitchen does, either, the house knows perfectly well. It knows something the detective doesn’t. The killer is still very much in this room.

Now that the murder has been mentioned, I must caution you not to identify this story foremost as a murder mystery; it isn’t. The murder doesn’t come till nearly the very end, and the reason that it affects us so deeply is because of the author’s success in making every character here feel tangible and known to us. By the time anyone is enraged enough to swing anything, we know all of these women, or most of them at least, well enough to feel as if they are family. Boarder Grace March is revealed to us more slowly than the other women, but there are reasons for that, and by the end, I may love her best of all. No, this is first and foremost a stellar work of historical fiction.

At the outset, no one knows anyone else. Some are married, waiting for spouses to return from the conflict; some are single; some are professionals. Almost everybody has at least one serious secret. But as they grow to know one another, bonds are established that in some cases are stronger than those of blood relatives.

I won’t go through the plot or describe individual characters; as far as I’m concerned, that would be gilding the lily. Instead, I urge you to get a copy of this outstanding novel in whatever form is your favorite, with a slight nudge toward audio if you’re undecided. Highly recommended!

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.

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.

The Morningside, by Tea Obreht****

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In 2019, Tea Obreht blew me away with Inland, a work of historical fiction—alternative history actually—so creative that I haven’t stopped thinking about it to this day. Her new book The Morningside is a dystopian novel that, while not as remarkable as the previous effort, is both intriguing and memorable.

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

Our protagonist is Silvia, and she and her mother are refugees from a homeland made dangerous by violent political turmoil. They were invited to live in The Morningside, a once grand old building fallen into disrepair by the flooding that comes with climate change. Silvia’s aunt, who arrives first, and her mother are to be caretakers and participate in the resettlement program.

At eleven, Silvia is full of questions. Her mother never talks about her father or about the past. Her aunt has photographs and stories; her mother is like the librarian that just wants everyone to stop talking. She is consumed by her fears. We readers have to wonder which of them is more realistic. Should the aunt stop blabbing, or should Sil’s mother get a grip? Silvia clearly prefers her aunt’s approach, but then, Sil is just a kid.

There’s a considerable wait list to get into school, so in the meanwhile, Silvia is bored, and bored kids have a tendency to get into trouble. Silvia becomes obsessed with the reclusive artist that lives in the penthouse. Nobody talks to her, because nobody is supposed to bother her. The one obvious thing about this neighbor is that she leaves home at the same time each day with her three dogs.

Silvia becomes convinced that the woman is a sorcerer whose dogs transform into humans—her three sons—for a portion of each day. My initial reaction is the same as her mother’s: don’t be ridiculous, Sil. Leave that poor woman alone. But then it dawns on me that this is fiction, after all, and this is Obreht, so…could the woman have supernatural powers?

Silvia is assisted twice in her spying mission, first by a neighbor that goes by Lam, and that is willing to exchange a pass key to enter the artist’s home for mail that was sent to him after he moved out.  I wonder about this; an eleven year old is approached by an adult man for secret purposes. What could possibly go wrong?

Her other confederate is a girl her own age whose family moves into The Morningside.  How starved Silvia has been for a peer!  Yet this girl is even gutsier than Silvia, and she leads her into dangerous waters more than once.

That’s all I’m going to tell you, except that the story is fresh and original, and although I tend to be skeptical when it comes to this genre, there is never a moment when I find myself stepping back and saying, no way.

With a young protagonist, one might be tempted to say this is for young adults, and that’s possible; yet the vocabulary is advanced enough that the younger reader had better have extraordinary skills in reading and comprehension, not to mention stamina.

I recommend this novel to those that love the genre.

The Hunter, by Tana French*****

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In 2020, Tana French gave us The Searcher, the first in the Cal Hooper detective series. By that time I was already an established fan, but I loved that book particularly well, for reasons I’ll revisit in a moment. Now we have the second in the series, The Hunter, and if anything can reduce this crusty old English teacher to a blushing fan girl, this is it. Two books in, this is already on my short list of favorite series. My thanks go to NetGalley and the Penguin Group for the review copy. This book will be available to the public Tuesday, March 5, 2024.

The series debut introduced the characters, with the protagonist being a retired Chicago cop that found this tiny Irish village on vacation and, needing a new home far from his ex-wife, yet affordable, discovered a bargain fixer of a home and decided to stay. The story’s main problem revolved around a nearly feral tween that kept popping up at Cal’s place. The scrappy little stinker that was relieving Cal of food, occasionally, and doing other unsettling things turned out to be a girl; her name is Teresa, but she’s known as Trey. Her family was in dire straights following the departure of Trey’s father; her brother had left, intending to return, but never had. The mystery was where Trey’s brother had gone, what had become of him, and why. In the interim, she became greatly attached to Cal, who enjoyed her company and taught her some woodworking skills, but also kept a careful distance, lest rumors start and grow.

Now Trey is a bit older, and she is more civilized. She is close to both Cal and Lena, the local woman that Cal has been seeing. But as life settles into a civilized hum, one that would be comfortable had climate change not created a drought that has local farmers at the near end of their wits and their bank accounts, the unexpected happens once again: Johnny Reddy, Trey’s no-account father, has returned. Cal is prepared to step back, if need be, in case Trey wishes to bond with her actual dad rather than himself. Meanwhile, Johnny vows to visit Cal with some local moonshine, and “make a night of it.”

“Trey says nothing. If he does that, she’ll get Cal’s rifle and blow his fucking foot off, and see can he make his way down the mountain to Cal’s after that.”

Johnny never succeeds in bonding with Cal, who doesn’t like the look of him. “Johnny gives him the urge to pat him down and ask him where he’s headed. There are guys like that, who flunk the sniff test just going to the store; it’s a good cop’s job to work out whether they’re actually doing something hinky, or whether it’s just that they will be sooner or later, probably sooner.”

The village is a tiny one, and outsiders are few. Everyone in the vicinity knows that Johnny’s back; everyone wonders what he’s up to. They haven’t long to wait; he’s brought a man with him, one whose family once lived here, or so he says; and the man is interested in seeing if there’s gold on some of the local properties. “He has a rich man’s smile, easy and understated, the smile of a man who isn’t required to put in effort.”  Now the question is whether this “plastic Paddy” is a shyster trying to rip off the locals, or if he is someone that Johnny is seeking to fleece. Meanwhile, Trey has a different agenda, a private one.

The thing that makes this story so much better than your standard mystery is the characterization. If you are in search of a thriller that is all page-turning action, this isn’t your book. However, if you love a layered story with complex, convincing characters, this is for you. I said in my previous review of the first in the series that Trey is what makes an otherwise solid story a golden one, and that’s even truer here. One could even argue that it’s really her series, with Cal existing as scaffolding. Time will tell.

In particular, though, anyone that works with, or has worked with at risk youth cannot, must not miss this story. French has taken hold of my heartstrings hard, and I don’t want her to let go. Highly recommended.

I Did It for You, by Amy Engel****

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Amy Engel is the author of The Roanoke Girls and The Familiar Dark, both of which were unrelentingly creepy, and I loved them. When I saw that she had written another, I had to read it. My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Dutton for the review copy of I Did It for You. This book is for sale now.

Greer Dunning’s sister, Eliza and her boyfriend, Travis, were murdered when they were teenagers. One minute they were making out in his car, and the next, boom. Someone shot them dead, right through the window. The guilty party was eventually caught and charged, and eventually admitted what he’d done, but it never made sense, especially not to Greer. She had a hunch that the killer, an intellectually disabled fellow with little imagination, had not acted alone. But he has said nothing about it, refused to provide a motive, and what he knew, he took with him to the electric chair.

Greer moved on. She finished school, moved from her hometown of Ludlow, Kansas to Chicago, where she works as a middle school counselor. But now a similar crime has occurred back in Ludlow, and Greer feels the pull, the urge to turn toward home and find out for real just what is going on.

This is a solid mystery, though not one with the sort of page turning urgency as the other two. It’s deeply atmospheric, and there’s a melancholy, brooding mood that’s thick and rich, and this is becoming Engel’s signature quality. The internal monologue is an absorbing one.

The choices that she makes while she is home make sense in a strange way, and parallels form in the most unexpected of places.

The solution itself doesn’t work for me. What? No. But the journey we take to get there makes this novel worth reading.

The only problem with writing a big-deal debut novel is that you’ve set the bar high, and readers develop stratospheric expectations for each subsequent book. So it is here. I Did It for You is a decent read, but it isn’t The Roanoke Girls, and it isn’t The Familiar Dark. Instead, it is simply a good book.

For mystery lovers that have never read anything by this author, this book is recommended. For those that have, you may want to get this one free or cheap, rather than paying full cover price.

The Mystery Guest, by Nita Prose****-*****

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“The maid is always to blame.”

4.5 stars, rounded upward.

Author Nita Prose introduced Molly the Maid to us in 2022. Now Molly is back. She’s the head maid now, and considerably more confident than when we first met her. Her boyfriend Juan Manuel has moved in with her, but he is conveniently out of town for most of this novel, and it’s just as well, because there’s another murder about to occur at The Regency Grand Hotel, and once more, Molly will be instrumental in identifying the killer.

My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the review copy. This book will be available to the public November 28, 2023, so you can plan your gift lists accordingly.

The hotel is in high gear, planning for the big gathering that will introduce the large, new, lovely tearoom. Business has been down at TRG since the murder last year, and this special occasion should bring new life into the hotel. In fact, Molly has given up her vacation with Juan so that she can see to the set-up; everything must be cleaned, shined, and buffed to perfection. You see, famous author J.D. Grimthorpe has an important announcement to make, and he’s chosen the tearoom as the venue from which to do so.

The stage is set, and the fans arrive. Molly’s protégé, Lily, has arranged the tea cart perfectly. Grimthorpe takes the podium, and is presented with his tea. After doctoring it to his own tastes, he takes a sip and ascends the stage once more, but before he can get to the surprise announcement, he keels over dead, right on top of Lily!

Lily is terrified. She’s always been a quiet one, but now she is virtually mute. When the police come in to question her, Lily is nearly undone.

“Molly, I’m afraid.” Her eyes are round pools of trepidation.

“I know,” I say. “But why?”

“Because a famous man is dead. Because they always blame the maid. You of all people should know that.”

“You’re not in any trouble, Lily.”

“Bit soon to tell,” the detective replies.

With that, we’re off and running. The book is one hell of a page turner, and it’s over before I know it. There’s lots of spunky dialog that jumps off the page. I seldom regret putting away my book because I spend so much time reading each day, but for this one, I stayed up late.

My only quibble—a small one—is that a key part of the solution is a bit of a reach. But this is a fun story, and so I make a quick note and move on.

For those that enjoy a sparkling mystery interspersed with wry humor, this book is for you. The profound respect for the working class is icing on the teacake.

Highly recommended.

Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim*****

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Angie Kim’s barnstorming best seller in 2019, Miracle Falls, showed us that she is a force to be reckoned with. Now she’s written something even better. My thanks to go Net Galley and Random House for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

I admired Kim’s debut novel, but because of its complex nature, it was a fair amount of work to read. Happiness Falls is every bit as brainy, but it’s streamlined, with just five important characters and a handful of secondary ones, so the reader can spend more time enjoying it and trying to puzzle out the solution, and less time trying to keep up with the plot and recall the intermittently appearing characters as it progresses.

As with her debut, this story features a main character with special needs. Eugene Parson has Angelman syndrome, a rare disorder that has rendered him incapable of speaking. This is a problem, because one day, Dad and Eugene go to the park for their daily walk, but Eugene comes home alone, bloody, disheveled, and tremendously upset. What happened? The family’s concern intensifies when Dad’s backpack is found floating downstream, but Eugene cannot speak. And so, the mystery that is interwoven into this family drama is established.

The story is told in the first person by Mia, Eugene’s older sister. Mia’s twin, John, rounds out the siblings, and their mother is the fifth family member. It’s set in Virginia during the pandemic; however, plot and character are much more important here than setting.

The mystery—what has happened to Dad—is wholly original because of the critical role played by Eugene’s communication challenges. Originality becomes more important to me every time I pick up a mystery; once you’ve read several hundred of these things, sameness can produce tedium. But this novel has much more going for it than that. The characters are absolutely believable. The teenagers are all convincing; they are age appropriate, bright but occasionally impulsive. Best of all is that there is no abuse story tucked in here. Their dad is or was a loving one, and the same is true of their mother. The parents have navigated bumps in their marriage, but by the time we hear of them, they’re fine. There’s no horrific baggage waiting to ambush us. These are nice people whose lives are complicated solely by the need to assist Eugene, whom everyone also loves. I make a point of telling you this, because I am sick to death of stories about terrible mothers. I’ve had enough of them, and am delighted Kim doesn’t go there.

Our narrator, Mia, is cleverly drawn; she is the family cynic, and she’s the family motormouth, and so if we occasionally wonder why Mia is telling us everything in such detail, it’s because Mia is a talker.

There are twists and turns all over the place. Just when I begin to think I might have a handle on this mystery, Kim throws in something else that leaves me gaping like a guppy. What? Huh? Oh. Well, there goes my theory. What now?

Because I came to this post-publication, I checked out the audio version at Seattle Bibliocommons to help me catch up. The audio is very well done. Initially I didn’t find Mia’s narrative voice appropriate because she seemed mighty chirpy for a girl that may have just lost her father; however, once Mia’s character is further developed, which doesn’t take long, I realize that the chirpiness is part of Mia’s denial. She’s very close to her dad, and she can’t bear to think that he is in danger, or worse.

I have rarely felt any interest toward any profound learning disability, but Kim made me care about Eugene and Angelman’s.

This novel is brilliant, a standout for 2023. I highly recommend it to all that love a good mystery or family story.