Ladies’ Night

Ladies' Night
by Mary Kay Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250019677
Publication Date: June 24, 2013
Pages: 456
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Grace Stanton's life as a rising media star and beloved lifestyle blogger takes a surprising turn when she catches her husband cheating and torpedoes his pricey sports car straight into the family swimming pool. Grace suddenly finds herself locked out of her palatial home, checking account, and even the blog she has worked so hard to develop in her signature style. Moving in with her widowed mother, who owns and lives above a rundown beach bar called The Sandbox, is less than ideal. So is attending court-mandated weekly "divorce recovery" therapy sessions with three other women and one man for whom betrayal seems to be the only commonality. When their "divorce coach" starts to act suspiciously, they decide to start having their own Wednesday "Ladies' Night" sessions at The Sandbox, and the unanticipated bonds that develop lead the members of the group to try and find closure in ways they never imagined. Can Grace figure out a new way home and discover how strong she needs to be to get there?

Heartache, humor, and a little bit of mystery come together in a story about life's unpredictable twists and turns. Mary Kay Andrews' Ladies' Night will have you raising a glass and cheering these characters on.

Definitely not one of her best books, but not nearly as poor as I was led to believe. Admittedly, it’s set in my home town, which never fails to delight me as my home town only read made it on to the map in the last 15 years or so. But I enjoyed following the main character’s vision and her hard work on restoring the Cracker house, and I thoroughly enjoyed the romantic interest’s background of owning Jungle Jerry’s, a fictional but entirely accurate take on Sarasota Jungle Gardens, right down to the parrot that rides a bike.

Nostalgia definitely bumped the rating on this book at least a star; the villains were too villainous to be real – although in Florida non of them were impossible – and the plots were superficial at best. I always hold up her non detective fiction against her an early work of hers, Hissy Fit, and this falls far short of that incredibly readable story, but it’s not, as I said, her worst. Living as far from home as one can get and still be on the planet, I thoroughly enjoyed the virtual trip home, so, 4 stars.

A Bad Day for Sunshine

A Bad Day for Sunshine
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780349427171
Series: Sunshine Vicram #1
Publication Date: April 7, 2020
Pages: 390
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Little Brown Book Group

Del Sol native Sunshine Vicram has returned to town as the elected sheriff, expecting nothing more than a quiet ride. But now a teenage girl is missing, a kidnapper is on the loose, and all of this is reminding Sunshine why she left Del Sol in the first place. Add to that the trouble at her daughter's new school, plus a kidnapped rooster named Puff Daddy, and, well, the forecast looks anything but sunny.

But even clouds have their silver linings. This one's got Levi, Sunshine's sexy, almost-old flame, and Quincy Cooper, a fiery-hot US Marshall. With temperatures rising everywhere she turns, Del Sol's normally cool-minded sheriff is finding herself knee-deep in drama and danger.

A long time fan of Jones’ writing, I was excited to hear about this new series after her Charlie Davidson series came to an end, but also hesitant, as the premise for this new series sounded like quite a departure in a lot of ways.

I needn’t have worried; A Bad Day for Sunshine has everything I loved in the Charlie Davidson series (save the outright paranormal plots), only slightly more polished. Where the snark and jokes in the CD series could sometimes be a tad overdone (naming ever in animate object), here it was perfectly balanced. The multiple plots were here too, without quite the manic pace, and the friendships and dialog were bang on perfect. Levi too is the version of Reyes one could take home to their more liberal parents. In many ways, as much as I loved the Charlie Davidson series, Sunshine Vicram feels more polished.

Plotwise, there are many different irons in the fire and all were good, though a few were telegraphed ahead of time to varying degrees. I knocked half a star off because the multi-book plot feels transparent. I still can’t say who did it, but I feel confident about who didn’t and what role the character played in the crime. Whether I’m right or not, it left me feeling frustrated with the lack of resolution at the end, and doubly so when I found out the next book doesn’t come out until July 2021. But A Good Day for Chardonnay will definitely be pre-ordered.

Tales from Margaritaville – Reread

Tales from Margaritaville
by Jimmy Buffett
Rating: ★★★★½
Publication Date: June 11, 1989
Pages: 233
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

The singer/songwriter displays his gift for creating witty, laid-back Southern stories in a collection of bizarre tales and thoughtful essays

A recent re-read for me, though I dare not try to add the dates, as I’m afraid BL will blow my original dates out.

I love these stories and continue to love them every time I read them. They remind me of my home, and their eccentric and quirky. What I didn’t remember from previous re-reads was the Australian thread that runs through both the book and many of the stories. Buffett opens with a quote from Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines, in an introduction titled “Walkabout”, and at least one – two? – stories include references to aboriginal myth. A small thing, but a nice parallel for a Florida girl on a decade-plus walkabout down under.

Content copied from: http://jenn.booklikes.com/post/2800371/tales-from-margaritaville.

Amethyst Dreams

Amethyst Dreams
by Phyllis A. Whitney
Rating: ★★★
Publication Date: July 11, 1997
Pages: 276
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Crown Publishers

For several years, time and circumstance have managed to separate Hallie Knight and her old friend Susan Trench, but when Susan disappears from her grandfather's seaside home on historic Topsail Island, it is Hallie whom Nicholas Trench calls for help.

When Hallie arrives from California, she finds the old man surrounded by an odd collection of friends and relatives, all of whom seem to know a little more than they're willing to tell about Susan Trench and her last days on Topsail. Underlying Hallie's anxiety about Susan as well as her growing concern for Nicholas Trench is the personal problem of her estrangement from a husband she loves. Threads intertwine and questions build to the pitch of what may be a fearful answer.

Like a lot of other authors who write romantic suspense, Whitney was very hit and miss. Most of the misses I’ve read are the ones she wrote in her later years, and this isn’t an exception. The woman could still write well – her island setting came alive – but the plot was soft and sentimental, and the resolution was not a resolution at all. In fact it was completely unrealistic, unless the poor dead woman meant less than nothing to her family.

Content retrieved from: http://jenn.booklikes.com/post/2634250/amethyst-dreams.

Cotillion

Cotillion
by Georgette Heyer
Rating: ★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1952
Pages: 345
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Publisher: Heinemann

I was in the mood for a light read and while I was perusing my TBR piles, boxes, and shelves, I came across this and remembered that Lillelara had recently read it and enjoyed it.

I definitely enjoyed The Grand Sophy better, but this one got me through without complaint. I struggled to really feel invested in the story or any of the characters though; it seemed to missing just that little bit of depth – or else my reading slump had dulled my reading sense, rendering everything a bit duller. Given Heyer’s hit and miss record, either is possible. Or perhaps a bit of both: the final scene at Rattray’s rectory perked me right up; in that moment, the characters popped to life for me and I cared about what happened next.

I haven’t read even close to Heyer’s entire backlist, but I’d firmly place this midway on a scale of those I’ve read so far.

The Bookshop of Yesterdays

The Bookshop of Yesterdays
by Amy Meyerson
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 0778369080
Publication Date: May 21, 2018
Pages: 384
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Park Row

I didn’t much like this book, although the story itself isn’t bad. I’m assuming the author was going for a massive plot reveal, built up from the scavenger hunt the main character is sent on after the death of her uncle. But that plot twist was obvious to me from the very first part of the book, which made the rest rather anti-climatic, although I still enjoyed the scavenger hunt aspect.

The characters themselves didn’t much work for me either; Meyerson’s attempt to build complicated, layered characters just resulted in an attitude of indifference; the main character’s waffling over the confrontation with her mother; her mother’s complete indifference to her daughter’s obvious distress; the father’s complete check-out of the whole thing; the romantic interest … totally uninterested in romance.

It just didn’t work for me.

Executive Orders re-read

Executive Orders
by Tom Clancy
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 0399142185
Series: Jack Ryan #9
Publication Date: July 1, 1996
Pages: 875
Genre: Political Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Putnam

Given my current country of residence’s complete incompetence and the news that my native land is trying to be the world leader in everything including incompetence, I needed to escape to a world where real problems are met and dealt with by leaders with integrity and the skills to think through issues rationally with a view towards the long-term.

In other words, a fantasy.

I have always been and will always be, an unapologetic fan of Clancy’s works – the ones he wrote himself – so falling back into Jack Ryan’s world was, if not a comfort, at least familiar and comfortable. It’s been 2 decades since I last read this, and it generally holds up perfectly. The first half of the book is a bit overly idealistic, but what struck me about it is that Tom Clancy showed a startling degree of prescience not just in some of his major plot lines, but in his story arc.

Executive Orders is the story about a non-politician ending up as President of the United States, vowing to eject the political riff-raff out of Washington, and appointing business sector executives to the cabinet to get things done.

Sound familiar? Of course, Jack Ryan wasn’t a paranoid narcissist and he was highly educated and qualified regardless of his lack of political savvy. He also had more integrity than your garden variety black widow spider. But Clancy imagined the world we live in today twenty years ago, with startling accuracy, albeit in the most idealistic light.

His idealism extended to America’s response (and only America because his plot extended no further) to the epidemic that grips the country in Executive Orders; his national lockdown works flawlessly; almost nobody ignores the mandate, there are no rushes on grocery stores, and there’s no general panic. Of course, I’d like to think that any country’s population would react to an epidemic of ebola exponentially better than they’re reacting (or not) to the corona pandemic, so maybe my faith in humanity hasn’t been completely snuffed out.

Either way, it was good to revisit a world that works, even when everything is pear-shaped.

The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay

The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay
by Kelly Harms
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250070616
Publication Date: August 9, 2016
Pages: 280
Genre: Romance
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Lily Stewart has reached a crossroads in her life. Her painting career hasn't taken off, her best friend has changed beyond recognition, her relationship is a constant disappointment, and now she can't keep up with the rising cost of living in the city. With no one to turn to, Lily is forced to move from her beloved apartment, but while packing she comes across a piece of mail that had slipped to the back of her junk drawer: a letter detailing further action needed to finalize the annulment of a quickie Vegas wedding. From ten years ago!

Lily decides it's time to gather up the pieces of her life, and the first item on her list of things to fix is that annulment... but you can't just send a text ten years later reading, "Hey BTW we are still married." This is something that must be addressed in person, so Lily decides to track down her husband - the charming, enigmatic man she connected with all those years ago.

Ben Hutchinson left a high-profile dot-com lifestyle behind to return home to his family and the small lake town he loves, Minnow Bay. He's been living off the grid with the express purpose of making it hard to be found—so the last thing he expects is a wife he didn't know he had making her presence known.

I don’t normally draw parallels, but think Mary Kay Andrews, or Jennifer Crusie minus the purposeful hilarity, and you have a good idea of what The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay is going to deliver.

Lily is one of those artists who has the potential to make it big, but she’s a doormat; a cheerful, I-just-want-everybody-to-be-happy, doormat. Normally I’d have tossed this book aside because I don’t like reading about doormats, but Lily never wallowed, so that during the clueless stage of the story the irritating bits washed over me.

While packing to move out of her apartment, Lily stumbles across a 10 year old notice from Nevada telling her the annulment she applied for is incomplete. She’s been married to a guy she can’t even remember for a decade, and of course she’s feeling all her shortcomings, so determines to go to Minnow Bay to apologise in person and fix things. This is when she has her “I’m a doormat” epiphany, and while her turnaround is a work in progress, her wry humor about herself and the way she owns up to her shortcomings made it easy for me to relate to her and like her more than I normally would.

Added to her likeable qualities are the characters of Minnow Bay, all of whom are poster-small-town-perfect and quite a lot of them the kind I wish I had for neighbours. Colleen and Jenny’s antics trying to keep Lily in Minnow Bay are funny and Simone is acerbic but hilarious.

I thought the writing really readable and I easily finished it yesterday afternoon and evening; it’s not a long book and the engaging narrative sucked me in. I’m not sure I’d say it’s worth the sticker price, but it’s definitely worth the used bookshop price (in hardcover) and I thought it was a fun read, perfect for the mood I was in.

Total pages: 280
$$: $3.00

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
by Alice Menzies (translator), Katarina Bivald
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780701189068
Publication Date: June 18, 2015
Pages: 376
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Chatto & Windus

Sara is 28 and has never been outside Sweden - except in the (many) books she reads. When her elderly penfriend Amy invites her to come and visit her in Broken Wheel, Iowa, Sara decides it's time. But when she arrives, there's a twist waiting for her - Amy has died. Finding herself utterly alone in a dead woman's house in the middle of nowhere was not the holiday Sara had in mind.

But Sara discovers she is not exactly alone. For here in this town so broken it's almost beyond repair are all the people she's come to know through Amy's letters: poor George, fierce Grace, buttoned-up Caroline and Amy's guarded nephew Tom.

Sara quickly realises that Broken Wheel is in desperate need of some adventure, a dose of self-help and perhaps a little romance, too. In short, this is a town in need of a bookshop.

I have a lot of thoughts about this book, all swirling around in my head avoiding cohesiveness.

This is not a gripping or exciting book and it isn’t a faced-paced one either. This is a slow moving book and I suspect it’s appeal is going to be limited to those readers who have more than a little bit of the characters inside themselves.

I’m one of those readers; as much as my RL friends would say I’m outspoken and intolerant of crap, a lot of me shares a lot with the Broken Wheel characters, or I have at some point in my life. So while I can’t say this book emotionally moved me or cause me to think Profound Thoughts, I did connect with it and enjoy the story.

3 things that nagged at me:

As lovely as the idea of sharing/selling Amy’s books might be, all I could think about was ‘who inherited those books, and are they ok with you liquidating the estate?!?’ I’m assuming it’s Tom, since no other relatives are ever mentioned, but never once is it brought up. What’s the Swedish word for probate?
They misspelled Jane Austen’s Sanditon (Sandition).
I forgot the third thing, dammit. Obviously something huge.

On a side note, my copy is a UK edition, so the translation from the original Swedish used UK words and idioms, which I thought was kind of funny for a story set in the middle of corn-field Iowa.

All in all, a book I enjoyed.

Thursday Next

First Among Sequels
by Jasper Fforde

Published: Aug 01, 2007 by Viking USA
ISBN: 9780670038718

[star]

Um… I don’t even know what to say about this one. Trying to talk about any of the Next novels is hard, but this one has just got too many things going on. It’s not bad, but I didn’t like it. It got better towards the end, but it felt like Fforde was writing this like it was the last one until the last 1/3. I also got the impression that he was making future book-writing easier on himself:

Destroying the ChronoGuard has to make future plotting easier; some of the time paradoxes that are in these 5 books hurt to read about – I can’t imagine creating them.

But while a few big issues are tied up in bows (see spoiler above – or don’t if you haven’t read this yet), there were a LOT of things left unanswered, like the Holmes and Brennen issues and what has he done to Pickwick!!!

So I didn’t like Pickwick’s lack of page time and when he was in scenes he was marginalised. I didn’t like the time jump either – I get why Fforde might have done it, but I imagine Thursday as a bit of an action/adventure heroine, and it’s rather hard to maintain that image when Thursday is in her 50’s trying not to notice her greying hair. I’m not saying I didn’t get there in the end, (I’m in Thursday’s demographic myself and I’d like to think I could keep on adventuring) but Fforde made me work harder for it than seems reasonable. Aornis Hades’ manipulation of Thursday added to my struggle to get behind this story. I also didn’t like the multiple Thursday Nexts; they were just over-the-top caricatures.

So really, there was a lot I didn’t like. But I did love the bookworld scenes, and whenever there was any interaction with the book characters, I had a lot of fun. The final scenes in the Bookworld were excellent too – I really enjoyed reading about TN’s time spent on that ship. I also love how he segued into the next book’s plot (and it made me laugh).

So not really a useful review, really – the book is just such a departure in so many ways from the previous 4 books. I’m still looking forward to the next one but not as much as I looked forward to the earlier books.

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First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde

First Among Sequels
by Jasper Fforde