Category Archives: Fiction

Review: Barefoot, by Elin Hilderbrand

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Barefoot"
Barefoot
by Elin Hilderbrand
Little, Brown and Company, 528 pages
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Last month when I got home from Mexico, and had the opportunity to splurge on books, I looked for beach reading – books that took place in cute coastal villages. I’d been eying the paperback version of Elin Hilderbrands’s sixth Nantucket novel Barefoot for months, and finally brought it home on that trip. I didn’t actually read it it until the beginning of June, however, and when I did, it took a while before I was hooked. This is a novel that starts slowly, cresting like the gentlest of waves.

I don’t mind that sort of novel – sometimes they can be really satisfying reading – and I also didn’t mind that this was really an extended character piece. It begins, of course, with three women, Vicki, Brenda and Melanie, arriving on Nantucket for a summer in the cottage that Vicki and Brenda (sisters) inherited from their aunt. Melanie’s along for the ride because she’s a friend of Vicki’s. Each woman comes with baggage of the figurative kind as well as actual luggage. For Vicki, it’s cancer – she’ll be having chemo while summering by the shore. Brenda was a hotshot professor at a small, private university, fired for having an affair with her student (it should be noted that this isn’t a creepy kind of affair – her student was older than she was – but it was a professional faux pas). And Melanie…Melanie is newly pregnant, but because her husband is having an affair he refuses to end, the only birth announcements she’s made – or pregnancy announcements, for that matter, are to the other women with her on the trip, and, within a couple of chapters, the young islander Josh, who first greets them at the airport, then ends up becoming whatever the male version of an au pair is, since Vicki came with her two young children.

During the summer, Brenda works on the book/screenplay that she hasn’t been able to focus on elsewhere, Vicki becomes empowered with regard to her disease, and Melanie has a summer fling with young Josh.

None of these things are at all surprising, nor is the ending of the novel remotely unpredictable, but sometimes you don’t need a great twist for a novel to be satisfying; sometimes, all you need are vivid descriptions, three-dimensional characters (even when you find some of their behavior a bit annoying), and a cute coastal village. Hilderbrand provides all of those.

Goes well with: lemonade and a tuna sandwich from inside a picnic cooler at the beach.

Review: The Betrayal of the Blood Lily

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The Betrayal of the Blood Lily
The Betrayal of the Blood Lily
by Lauren Willig
Dutton Adult, 416 pages
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In the newest adventure in Lauren Willig’s “Pink Carnation” series, all about nineteenth-century British flower spies (the first of which, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, was an affectionate sequel to Baroness Orcy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel), we move from England to colonial India, and the change of locale breathes new life into this series.

As is usual for Willig’s work, we’ve met our heroine Penelope Deveraux (now Lady Frederick Staines) before, when she made a brief appearance in the previous novel, The Tempation of the Night Jasmine. In that book, she was involved in a minor sex scandal…now we find her married off to the other party, but it’s a marriage that was forced upon two people who are really completely unsuited for each other simply to give the appearance of propriety to their relationship.

To further avert scandal, the couple’s been sent to India, where Lord Staines (Freddy) will take the position of Governor Generall Wellesley’s Special Envoy to the Court of Hyderabad. He, of course, begins an affair with a local “bibi,” – a mistress – and Penelope, who is quite the tomboy, with shooting and riding skills rivaling those of the men around her – makes her own niche, befriending Captain Alex Reid, who is escorting the couple and their entourage.

What follows is a rollicking adventure that includes murder, mayhem, passion, and politics, all rolled into a steamy climate. It’s a great read – so much so that for the first time, I wasn’t looking forward to contemporary character Eloise Kelly’s interludes (Eloise serves as narrator, as these adventures are all part of her graduate research project) with the dashing young relative of the original Pink Carnation, although, I will admit that reading about her grilled cheese dates are much more fun than reading lipozene reviews.

While these books are better when read in order, this novel can stand alone without the reader missing too many details.

Goes well with: grilled cheese sandwiches and good beer. Or a really tasty curry.

Review: Dead in the Family

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Dead in the Family
by Charlaine Harris
Ace Hardcover, 320 pages
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Even though it’s been less than two weeks since I’ve read Charlaine Harris’ latest addition to the Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Mystery series, I don’t remember much about it. I don’t mean that I didn’t enjoy it, because I did, or that it wasn’t well-written, because it was, but that it seemed like it didn’t really have a definitive plot. Oh, I mean, there was a stray faerie, and an unidentified shifter, but most of the book seemed transitional.

For example: Sookie is dealing with the aftermath of losing her “fairy godmother,” forging a relationship with her young cousin, who shares her ability, trying to find boundaries in her relationships with Eric (romantic) and Bill (who, quaintly, is still referred to as Vampire Bill by most of the folks at Merlotte’s, but, while there’s some wrapping up of loose threads, and some setup of future events, book ten feels very much like the middle novel of a trilogy, making it one of the rare books in this series that HAS to be read in order or the reader will be left completely confused.

Diehard Sookie Stackhouse fans will not want to miss this book, which came out six weeks ago (giving book clubs enough time to discuss it before last Sunday’s beginning of season three of True Blood), but I’m left feeling like the story wasn’t complete. Less is more, of course, as the adage goes, but…this book included a visit to Eric’s house, and I’m not certain if I know whether or not his taste runs to modern furniture, or something much more exotic.

Goes well with: peach pie and sweet tea.

Review: The God of the Hive

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The God of the Hive
The God of the Hive
Laurie R. King
Bantam, 368 pages
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I’ve been a fan of Laurie R. King’s series about Mary Russell and her older husband, the legendary Sherlock Holmes, since the first book hit the stores, so of course, I had to have the latest adventure the very second it came out. When The God of the Hive arrived, however, I put it aside, planning to savor it while on vacation. Instead, I read all the paperbacks I’d brought with me, so that I could leave them for my mother, and didn’t read this novel until I got home.

One of the things I love about this series is the level of detail King includes. While she doesn’t have to know what passed for the best acne treatment in Holmesian London, she does have to know where one can find certain kinds of stationery, or where a bolthole might be located.

In this book, which is a direct sequel to the previous installment, The Language of Bees, Russell and Holmes are still separated by the requirements of their current case – Holmes fleeing with his injured long-lost son, and meets up with a Scottish doctor, who ends up being a fabulous addition to the existing cast of characters. Mary, on the other hand, has the aeroplane pilot, and Holmes’ half-Chinese granddaughter to contend with, though she, too, hooks up with a helper who turns out to be quite beneficial to all concerned.

There isn’t much detection in this novel – there is character and there’s plot, but it’s basically a chase scene interrupted by action.

The good news, however, is that it’s still, undeniably King’s work, which is always incredibly compelling reading.

Review: Addition, by Toni Jordan

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Addition
Addition
by Toni Jordan
Polebridge Press (Harper San Francisco), 272 pages
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You’re not supposed to judge books by their covers, I know, but it was the cover of Toni Jordan’s novel Addition that hooked me, with its pretty rows of brightly colored objects. Then I read the back, and thought, “Hmm. This is interesting.”

Protagonist Grace Lisa Vandenburg has been “counting things” since she was a young girl, and by “counting things” I don’t mean “inventorying pool filters,” but that she’s high-functioning OCD. High functioning in that as long as she sticks to a routine, she can leave her apartment and do things. . . to a point. Her routine is pretty specific though – she goes so far as to remove two eggs from every carton because she has to have TEN not TWELVE, and she steals a banana from a guy at the grocery store because she miscounted and is already in line.

When the same guy is at her table at the cafe where she goes every day for a slice of orange cake and a hot chocolate, Grace has to break out of the comfort of counting. The two fall into a quirky relationship, and the Boy even gets her to try therapy again. But her niece, and closest confidant isn’t thrilled with well-adjusted Grace, preferring a blend of the original version and the one that has been through therapy.

Toni Jordan’s characters are delightfully quirky, and her glimpse into the mind of someone with OCD is both interesting and enlightening. The novel is paced a little slow, at first, but then it gets better, and the end is satisfying, but let’s be clear: this is summer reading at it’s best.

Goes well with: A slice of orange cake and hot chocolate, obviously.

Review: The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

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The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder
The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder
by Rebecca Wells
Harper, 416 pages
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I don’t remember when I was first introduced to Rebecca Wells’ work, though I know I read The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood years before there was ever a movie. Maybe even decades. It should, therefore come as no surprise that as soon as I first saw her latest book The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder, I had to buy it. What is surprising, is that I never saw the hardcover when it came out a year ago, so my first introduction to this new world was when I saw the trade paperback on the “new in paperback” table at Barnes and Nobel a couple of months ago.

I started the book before I left for Mexico, then set it aside to finish there, because I wanted to really savor it, and because I knew my mother would like to read it. Actually, I left her three of the five novels I brought with me. The hardcover I brought home, and am reading now, and the fourth paperback I read in the airport, and on the plane on the way home, finishing the last few pages before I went to bed. But, I digress…

Like Wells’ other work, Calla Lily’s story is set in Louisiana, and features strong women characters, but Calla’s story is nothing like the Ya-Yas, petite or original.

Calla grows up with parents who are completely in love with each other, and love her and her brothers just as strongly. Together, her parents teach dance lessons, and run a sort of open dance studio on weekends. Her father is a musician, sometimes, and her mother also owns the single chair “Crowning Glory Beauty Porch.” Calla inherits from her mother a love of the moon, and the ability to be a catalyst for healing when she does hair. If that latter concept sounds far-fetched, consider how much better most of us feel when we have a really good shampoo girl at the salon, or an amazing new cut, or change our hair color in just the right way.

Early in the story, Calla’s mother develops breast cancer, and dies, and her father shows himself to the be sort of quietly supportive, fiercely devoted parent that deserves every gift from the redenvelope father's day guide, and then some, but he also retreats into what is essentially a background character. The rest of the novel is Calla’s and we trace her journey from high school in her small town, to New Orleans in the early 1970’s where she goes to beauty school and becomes fast friends with Ricky, the best stylist and salon owner in town, and his partner, Steve (which combination of names seems ripped right out of that Steel Magnolias line about “all gay men have track lighting and all gay men are named Mark, Rick, or Steve”). She falls in love, marries, loses her love, and generally has the kind of touched-by-luck-and-love-and-magic life that can only be found in novels written by Southern authors.

Because this is essentially the autobiography of a fictional character, it’s difficult to give an adequate synopsis, but the book is enjoyable, with several laugh-out-loud (no, seriously, for real) moments.

Goes well with sweet tea and gumbo.

Review: Angelology

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Angelology
Angelology
by Danielle Trussoni
Viking, 464 Pages
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When my friend Deb told me she was reading a book called Angelology, and that I had to read it, too, I was skeptical. I mean, it sounded like some funky new age treatise, and secretly, I was worried about what chemicals might be misfiring in her brain. Then she began to describe the plot, and even before she gave me the book, I was hooked.

Imagine a world where angels walk beside us, not as mystical guardians but as immortal (or as near to it as makes little difference) preter-natural beings with huge mafia-esque family businesses. Oh, they’re not ‘out’ or anything – but they exist nevertheless – at least in the reality Trussoni has created.

Enter Sister Evangeline, orphan, nun, restless soul. She’s been assigned to work in the convent library, and one day while she’s doing just that, she intercepts a letter asking for proof of a connection between her convent’s former Mother Superior and Abigail Rockefeller, yes, the Abigail Rockefeller.

That letter sparks a romp through art, literature and history that even Dan Brown would be humbled by, replete with mystery, intrigue, faith, science, and maybe even a little magic.

To describe the plot more would be to ruin it. Suffice to say Angelology is a gripping paranormal mystery/thriller of epic proportions.

Goes well with a slice of angel food cake, fresh strawberries, and a perfect cappuccino.

Review: Lost & Found

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Lost and Found
Lost & Found
by Jacqueline Sheehan
Avon, 304 pages
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Because I’m a sucker for a cute face – especially when the face belongs to a dog with a number like ls4278 instead of a name, there was no way I could pass by the trade paperback edition of Jacqueline Sheehan’s novel Lost & Found. After all, there’s a cute dog on the cover.
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This dog, however, does not have a number instead of a name. When protagonist Rocky loses her veterinarian husband in the opening chapter, she decides to leave her job as a psychiatric counselor attached to a local university, and moves to a remote island in Maine to become the animal control warden. Once there, she meets Isaiah, the local vet, Tess, the local therapist, and Melissa, a young girl struggling with anorexia. She also meets Lloyd, after rescuing him from behind a dumpster, where he’s nursing the infected wound caused by an arrow.

Lloyd is the dog on the cover, a black lab who eventually serves as the catalyst for healing and change among all the women in the story.

This is a gentle novel, and I’m reading it on vacation, so even though I’m enjoying the story, it’s making me miss my dogs, more.

Goes well with an animal to cuddle.

Review: Skin and Bones, by D.C. Corso

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Skin and Bones
Skin and Bones
by D. C. Corso
Bennet & Hastings, 162 pages
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When I was offered the chance to read D. C. Corso’s debut novel Skin and Bones I jumped at it, because I love mysteries, true crime, and police procedurals, and the story – that of an FBI agent joining forces with a small town’s prodigal daughter to track down a serial killer who preys on children, and set just after September 11, 2001, – seemed like something I’d really enjoy. Imagine my surprise when the book showed up and wasn’t even 200 pages long. Well, don’t let the cover – or the size – fool you, because with this novel, less really is more.

Set on an island off the coast of Seattle, the book opens with what seems like a flashback. I won’t tell you what that scene really is, because the main plot begins immediately after: a young girl is biking to the local minimart to meet her friends for the last slushies of the season, when a truck driver asks her for directions. She approaches, cautiously, and learns that the address the trucker is supposedly seeking is her own. From that point we jump into FBI agent Ash Severin’s world – he’s been sent to Carver Isle to manage the case, but unlike most feds, he works with the local law enforcement, not against them.

At the same time, local girl Parker Kelly has returned home, ostensibly because she’s concerned for her aged mother, but once she arrives on the scene, weird things begin to happen. She hears the signature whistle of her psychotic cousin, supposedly safely locked up in prison, and feels his presence all around her. With her mother dying, and more children being taken, this is the last thing Parker needs.

Ash and Parker initially don’t get along, but eventually her past and his present begin to intertwine – and so do they.

Skin and Bones may be relatively short, but author D.C. Corso writes with a compelling style that is neither too florid nor too plain. Her descriptions are vivid when necessary, and vague when called for, and the characters and settings she describes seem like real people you may encounter in ANY small town. I would heartily recommend it to anyone who loves this genre of literature – it’s a great read…though I’d recommend against reading it in the bathtub while alone in the house.

Trust me on that part.

Review: This One is Mine, by Maria Semple

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This One is Mine
This One is Mine
by Maria Semple
Back Bay Boo. ks, 320 pages
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Maria Semple’s debut novel This One is Mine sounded like it would be just my thing when the publicist offered me a review copy. Then I read it, and learned that while Semple’s characters are vivid, and her writing voice easy to read, her book wasn’t quite my thing after all.

This One is Mine is the story of Violet, who has violets tatooed behind her ear, and was once a television writer/producer, but who quit working when she became a mother, choosing to focus on raising her baby and caring for the huge L.A. home she and her music producer husband (David) live in. She does this, not on her own, but with the help of the nanny, whom is called LadyGo (which clueful readers figure out about two-thirds of the way into the book comes from the nanny’s habit of retelling conversations with liberal use of the phrase, “Lady go, “blah blah blah…”). In the opening chapters, however, we see a home with a dead rodent in the hot tub, and honey leaking through the kitchen ceiling, two items that are never resolved in the story.

Violet is restless, and feels trapped, and ends up having a short-lived affair with a D-list bass-player named Teddy. It would be wonderful if this affair stirred Violet from her stupor, and sent her either back to the office, or back home to really take charge, but Teddy is so unlikeable – he’s a loser with bad hygiene and a drug habit who pretty much only cares about music, sex, and his car – that this relationship left me feeling as slimy as Violet should have. Seriously, I like to read in the bath, but this book made me want a shower.

Then there’s Sally, David’s sister. 36, beautiful and completely neurotic, she’s latched onto a sports statistician who is about to become famous and successful in a whole new way – she thinks – and when their relationship isn’t everything it seems, doesn’t talk to him the way reasonable adults do, but hides her problems.

Still the book ends on an up note, and despite the overdramatic characters and implausible situations, it’s important to remember that author Semple is, herself, a producer/writer, and this novel is meant to be social satire. And it succeeds well at this. I especially enjoyed David’s trip to a sweat lodge – I laughed so hard at THAT scene that the laughter served in place of allergy relief.

Is it outright funny? I suspect only if you live in L.A. or are close to people who do, will it generate belly laughs. Do I wish I hadn’t read it? No. It was interesting, just…not particularly my thing. I do think its likely to be quite enjoyable for most women, however.

Except for the tattoos of violets behind the main character’s ears. Those, I really liked.