The Sentence

The Sentence
by Louise Erdrich
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781472157003
Publication Date: November 9, 2021
Pages: 387
Genre: Fiction, Literature
Publisher: Little Brown Book Group

Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading 'with murderous attention,' must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

What an extraordinary read. From first page to last I was awed and riveted. There was a lot of pain in this book, but Erdrich never overwhelmed the story or the reader with it; there was humor subtly woven through the words like sweetgrass, but it never took over. The angst – something I’m not normally keen to read about – was authentic, and both was and wasn’t a focus of the story.

It seems that I can only be swayed to read literary fiction when there’s a ghost involved. First Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, and now The Sentence. Neither has let me down or made me regret my choice, but I think I might like The Sentence more, even though I rated it half a star lower. Lincoln in the Bardo was often difficult to read as the human condition was a little too magnified, human and on display to really enjoy it. But the structure just blew me away. The Sentence has a traditional narrative structure, and I became invested in the characters’ lives and cared what happened to them, although Tookie’s journey to prison is, while shortly told, both painful and painfully funny.

There are really two, maybe three, stories in this book. The Sentence begins with the aftermath of Flora’s death and her initial haunting of the bookshop, all of which happens in November 2019. As the season and the months progress so, too, does Flora’s haunting, seeming to focus on Tookie more than anyone else, and escalating in alarming ways.

Then as 2020 progresses into that fateful March, another story takes over – the story of the pandemic; how it crept up on people and suddenly exploded on the scene in a flurry of hand-washing, sanitisers, and food hoarding. Stay-at-home orders. Keeping the bookstore, Birchbark books open. At this point, I think, this story becomes more fictography, and Flora’s ghost fades to almost nothingness as the narrative is about surviving, staying open, staying safe.

And then George Floyd is murdered by a policeman in broad daylight. Now the story becomes a fictitious memoir, but only in the sense that the names have changed. This is the Native American perspective of the riots and it’s about as an effective narrative of the pain, anguish, anger, frustration, bitterness, hope, and need to heal as any I’ve read. It is the hardest part of the book to read.

As Minneapolis puts things back together, Flora comes back to the forefront of the plot again. These last few chapters were still beautifully written but it’s this part of the story that kept me from going to the full 5 stars. The ‘solution’ to Flora’s haunting seems suddenly abrupt; their idea for her release seems to come out of nowhere, although it’s totally in keeping with the theme of the book. The characters don’t know there’s a theme, so how did they suddenly get from what are were going to do? to wait! I know what she wants! ? There’s no progression here, so it feels bolt-of-lightning-from-the-blue-ish. And then the revelation Tookie has that does banish Flora. I know exactly what Erdrich was trying to do, and I know exactly to what earlier part of the story she was trying to tie it to, but it was clumsily done. I was left floundering for several paragraphs, and even when the ‘denouement’ came, it failed to have the emotional impact it should have had – I feel Erdrich missed a step that kept the reader from feeling the full power of the gut punch we’re meant to feel.

It doesn’t really matter though – this is a read that will remain with me, and one I want to talk about with everybody I come into contact with. A damn good story.

The Newcomer

The Newcomer
by Mary Kay Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250256966
Publication Date: May 4, 2021
Pages: 440
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

After she discovers her sister Tanya dead on the floor of her fashionable New York City townhouse, Letty Carnahan is certain she knows who did it: Tanya’s ex; sleazy real estate entrepreneur Evan Wingfield. Even in the grip of grief and panic Letty heeds her late sister’s warnings: “If anything bad happens to me—it’s Evan. Promise me you’ll take Maya and run. Promise me.”

So Letty grabs her sister’s Mercedes and hits the road with her wailing four-year-old niece Maya. Letty is determined to out-run Evan and the law, but run to where? Tanya, a woman with a past shrouded in secrets, left behind a “go-bag” of cash and a big honking diamond ring—but only one clue: a faded magazine story about a sleepy mom-and-pop motel in a Florida beach town with the improbable name of Treasure Island. She sheds her old life and checks into an uncertain future at The Murmuring Surf Motel.

And that’s the good news. Because The Surf, as the regulars call it, is the winter home of a close-knit flock of retirees and snowbirds who regard this odd-duck newcomer with suspicion and down-right hostility. As Letty settles into the motel’s former storage room, she tries to heal Maya’s heartache and unravel the key to her sister’s shady past, all while dodging the attention of the owner’s dangerously attractive son Joe, who just happens to be a local police detective. Can Letty find romance as well as a room at the inn—or will Joe betray her secrets and put her behind bars? With danger closing in, it’s a race to find the truth and right the wrongs of the past.

The absolute latest by Mary Kay Andrews (I told you I needed post-op easy reads), save for the somewhat disappointing novella The Santa Suit, and reading this I could almost believe Andrews has found her groove again. It’s another mystery/romance in the same vein as The Weekenders but written a lot more smoothly with a much easier flow. Andrews is still using multiple POVs, and they start off a bit clunky – this might be an editing issue, as I think bolder title timelines/location identifiers might have helped. Once established though, the POVs worked smoothly, and Andrews played some small mind-games with the reader, introducing possibly unreliable narratives once or twice. Again, a little clunky, but mostly effective.

The story is about the murder of the MC’s sister, which = mystery, but really, there’s no mystery about who killed her, just whether or not justice will be served. That means that it’s less about investigating and more about case building, leading to some over-the-top antics that you’d like to believe are totally unrealistic, but just might not be.

I’ve read a lot of Andrews’ work now – not all of it, but enough to feel confident saying she really doesn’t write romance in the sense that the reader is swept away. The male mc’s are mostly ‘good’ guys, but there’s not a one of them I can remember thinking I’d date him. At the end, I’m happy for the MC, but not bowled over by her HEA.

This is a beach-read worth reading; or, if you’re luck runs like mine does recently, a good solid yet light read to loll away the hours when confined to your bed. Enough to keep you interested, not enough to tax your pain-meds-addled mind.

The Weekenders

The Weekenders
by Mary Kay Andrews
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781250065940
Publication Date: June 14, 2016
Pages: 451
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Some people stay all summer long on the idyllic island of Belle Isle, North Carolina. Some people come only for the weekends-and it's something they look forward to all week long. When Riley Griggs is waiting for her husband to arrive at the ferry one Friday afternoon, she is instead served with papers informing her that her island home is being foreclosed. To make matters worse, her husband is nowhere to be found.

She turns to her island friends for help and support, but each of them has their own secrets and the clock is ticking as the mystery deepens. Cocktail parties and crab boil aside, Riley must find a way to investigate the secrets of Belle Island, the husband she might not really know, and the summer that could change everything.

As I’ve said elsewhere recently, I’ve found Mary Kay Andrews’ last few years of output to be hit or miss, with more closer to ‘miss’ than ‘hit’, but she’s been setting her stories in Florida, and the type of stories she writes is a known quantity and, well, hope springs eternal.

So you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to see that The Weekenders was much closer to hit than her recent average. In might be in part because this story revolves around a mystery (Andrews used to write murder mysteries under the name Kathy Trojek, if I remember correctly), but even without the mystery co-plot, it’s a much more solid story than quite a few in her list. There’s decent character development of both the MC and the side characters, including her spoiled brat of a daughter.

I was tickled when the ‘grand reveal’ of the murderer was done; not only did I not see it coming, but the way Andrews did it was a little bit inspired.

The romance was … choppy. I liked the romantic interest well enough, though he wasn’t memorable, but the MC’s flaws (or the flaws in the writing of the MC) shined in the romantic co-plot. She was too hot-and-cold without sufficient (for me) justification to make me believe or support it.

The book was still a pretty uneven effort for Andrews, even if it was vastly more enjoyable than others; while the main POV is the MCs, we do occasionally get POVs from other characters; some of them made complete sense, but some of them did not. A few times we get her BFF’s POV and it made me think there was a story there but it just sort of never happened. Those POV sections could have been omitted entirely and absolutely nothing would have been lost.

Overall, I was looking for a post-op distraction that didn’t require too much thinking through the haze of pain-killers, and I got that, plus a story that kept me reading because I wanted to, not just because it was what was in front of me.

Hello, Summer

Hello, Summer
by Mary Kay Andrews
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781250272195
Publication Date: April 27, 2021
Pages: 472
Genre: Fiction, Romance
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Conley Hawkins left her family’s small town newspaper, The Silver Bay Beacon, in the rearview mirror years ago. Now a star reporter for a big-city paper, Conley is exactly where she wants to be and is about to take a fancy new position in Washington, D.C. Or so she thinks.

When the new job goes up in smoke, Conley finds herself right back where she started, working for her sister, who is trying to keep The Silver Bay Beacon afloat—and she doesn’t exactly have warm feelings for Conley. Soon she is given the unenviable task of overseeing the local gossip column, “Hello, Summer.”

Then Conley witnesses an accident that ends in the death of a local congressman—a beloved war hero with a shady past. The more she digs into the story, the more dangerous it gets. As an old heartbreaker causes trouble and a new flame ignites, it soon looks like their sleepy beach town is the most scandalous hotspot of the summer.

Mary Kay Andrews has been really hit or miss for me the last few years, with a couple of very average efforts, and one downright bomb coming across my shelves, but Hissy Fit is one of my favourite reads, so I keep coming back for more.

I found Hello Summer at the library and I expected another meh read, but I find myself in the mood for the quirky characters and the Southern setting she writes in, so I sat down with it thinking I’d set the appropriate expectations.

And found myself a little bit surprised. It’s chock full of the quirky characters, and the North Florida setting is par for the course; it’s definitely not up to Hissy Fit standards, but it’s also a lot better than her other recent efforts I’ve read. There’s a bit of mystery here, a very solid plot, and although the book is labeled “romance”, I think romance readers would be disappointed. There is a romance, but it’s really back-burner stuff – the congressman’s death is always front-and-center.

The story starts slow, and much like her most recent release, The Santa Suit, the character does not come across sympathetically. Fortunately for Hello Summer, it had about 350 pages more to make Conley (the MC) relatable. I was feeling ambivalent about her and the book until the car wreck/death occurred, but from there the story hooked me.

Still, this was not a great book. It might have been a great book, had the characters been better developed, something that might have been possible had there been fewer of them, and better editing overall. I found at least half a dozen inconsistencies spread out in the story that jarred me out of scenes, and what little romance there was felt lukewarm at best.

I went 3.5 stars because the plot was really good. Had this been a first book, I’d even be a little gushy about it. But it’s not even a 10th book and I know Andrews is capable of much better writing; she’s certainly had enough practice.

I have another couple of her recent titles, and this one was good enough that I’ll keep on reading and hoping.

The Santa Suit

The Santa Suit
by Mary Kay Andrews
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781250279316
Publication Date: September 28, 2021
Pages: 210
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

When newly-divorced Ivy Perkins buys an old farmhouse sight unseen, she is definitely looking for a change in her life. The Four Roses, as the farmhouse is called, is a labor of love—but Ivy didn't bargain on just how much labor. The previous family left so much furniture and so much junk, that it's a full-time job sorting through all of it.

At the top of a closet, Ivy finds an old Santa suit—beautifully made and decades old. In the pocket of a suit she finds a note written in a childish hand: it's from a little girl who has one Christmas wish, and that is for her father to return home from the war. This discovery sets Ivy off on a mission. Who wrote the note? Did the man ever come home? What mysteries did the Rose family hold?

Ivy's quest brings her into the community, at a time when all she wanted to do was be left alone and nurse her wounds. But the magic of Christmas makes miracles happen, and Ivy just might find more than she ever thought possible: a welcoming town, a family reunited, a mystery solved, and a second chance at love.

This book had a dubious beginning with a main character that was flat and wooden, a romantic interest that was a little bit too forward at the start, and a charming house, dog, fabulous Christmas decorations, and lovely small-town friendliness holding it together.

At just over 50%, Ivy finally started acting like a human being. I kept expecting some big reveal about her childhood that would explain her complete lack of emotion about anything and everything, but it never happened. This is one of those rare times when a little introspection on the part of the MC might have helped the reader develop some empathy and understanding, but without it, I just really didn’t connect with Ivy, with one exception: her scenes with Lawrence felt sincere and were the only times when it seemed Ivy came alive to any degree.

Phoebe’s side story with Cody worked out pretty much exactly the way I thought it would, although their meet-cute was a nice touch.

I’d have liked to have a seen a little more resolution concerning her relationship with the woman who owned the candy company – that felt unfinished to me.

The romantic ending of the story felt pretty rushed and awfully optimistic, (this coming from someone who’s relationship could be accused of being rushed and optimistic) but it’s a Christmas novella, so I guess I’m meant to just go with it.

But most of all, and the reason I ended up giving this story 3.5 stars instead of 3, I loved the back story about Bob and Betty Rae. I love how they never lost their joy around the holidays, how they made such a quiet impact on the town during their lifetimes, and above all, I loved that they were Jewish. NOT because of any religious nonsense, but because they were able to be the bright spark of the Christmas season for this small town without compromising their own faith. I like reading stories about people coming together in the middle, rather than having to be one way or the other, and about being able to celebrate lots of different traditions without the stigma of turning your back on your own. It was an unexpected twist I enjoyed, and let’s face it, I totally fell for all the talk about vintage ornaments and bubble lights.

For a story that started off with so little potential, it ended up being a sweet and somewhat charming holiday tale.

The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane

The Good Luck Girls Of Shipwreck Lane
by Kelly Harms
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781250011381
Publication Date: January 1, 2013
Pages: 290
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

The HomeSweetHome Network has just announced this year's lucky winner of a brand-new, fully loaded dream home: Janine Brown of Cedar Falls, Iowa.

For Janine "Janey" Brown, hearing her name called on the TV has the hallmarks of one of her aunt Midge's harebrained plans designed to bring Janey into a world outside the one she once shared with her fiance. Janey, however, is reluctant to give up the safety and sanctity she finds in her tiny kitchen, submerging her anxiety and grief in the pursuit of the perfect pot-au-feu.

Meanwhile, across town, Janine "Nean" Brown just knows that this house is her destiny. Good fortune took its sweet time showing up in her life, but better late than never. And now that it's here, the house promises an escape from the latest in her revolving door of crappy jobs and drunk boyfriends. This house will turn her into someone the world sees, instead of the bedraggled girl who others look past without a thought.

Both Janine Browns head for Christmas Cove, Maine, to claim the prize they both rightfully think is theirs. When their lives and personalities intersect, however, they discover that more than just a million-dollar dream home awaits them at the water's edge. These three women (oh yes, Aunt Midge comes along for the ride ) arrive at their newfound mansion only to uncover what exactly it means to truly be "home."

This is one of those books that I almost didn’t make it through, but picked up considerably towards the end and made the effort worthwhile.

It’s a gross over-simplification, but I don’t like anti-heroes, or any characterisation that comes close to such a definition. One of the Janine Brown’s that make up the main characters of this book is a drifter, which in and of itself isn’t any problem. She starts off strong, in my book, when she knocks her abusive boyfriend unconscious with a coffee mug. But then she proceeds to lie, cheat, steal and string along the ‘other’ Janine Brown and her Great-aunt, and I don’t really care why or how sad her story is (and it is, by the way). I don’t care that I know that the trope virtually requires that the character is going to regret their actions, and find redemption, either. I just don’t like the trope, so I was pretty close to DNF’ing this one, but inertia, if nothing else, kept me reading it.

I still have problems with the premise as it relates to the above, and I was left dissatisfied with the weak explanations for why the ‘other’ Janine Brown retreated so completely into dysfunctional shyness after the death of her fiancé, but Great-aunt Midge managed to pull it altogether and make the story into something far more interesting and touching. The men were … meh. Necessary, I suppose but not central to the plot; this is definitely a story of a friendship forged under unusual circumstances.

Better than I expected, but not as good as the other book of hers I’ve read, The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay.

A Bookshop in Algiers

A Bookshop in Algiers
by Kaouther Adimi
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781788164696
Publication Date: June 1, 2020
Pages: 146
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Allen & Unwin

A Bookshop in Algiers celebrates quixotic devotion and the love of books in the person of Edmond Charlot, who at the age of twenty founded Les Vraies Richesses (Our True Wealth), the famous Algerian bookstore/publishing house/lending library. He more than fulfilled its motto 'by the young, for the young', discovering the twenty-four-year-old Albert Camus in 1937. His entire archive was twice destroyed by the French colonial forces, but despite financial difficulties and the vicissitudes of wars and revolutions, Charlot carried forward Les Vraies Richesses as a cultural hub of Algiers.

A Bookshop in Algiers interweaves Charlot's story with that of another twenty-year-old, Ryad, who is dispatched to the old shop in 2017 to empty it of books and repaint it. Ryad's no booklover, but old Abdallah, the bookshop's self-appointed, nearly illiterate guardian, opens the young man's mind.

Cutting brilliantly from Charlot to Ryad, from the 1930s to current times, from WWII to the bloody 1961 Free Algeria demonstrations in Paris, Adimi delicately packs a monumental history of intense political drama into her swift and poignant novel. But most of all, it's a hymn to the book and to the love of books.

Apparently I was in the mood to challenge myself when I went to the library. I’ve moved now from South Africa to North, to Algeria, and again find myself waffling between 4. and 4.5 stars.

Translated from the French, the writing via translation is beautiful, or, at least, beautifully engaging. The story is divided into flashbacks in the form of journal entries, written by the Edmund Charlot, the original owner of the Les Vraies Richesses (the Bookstore at the center of the story), a present-day timeline told in the third person, and a third that I don’t know how to describe; something akin to a transitional voice-over; NPR calls it a communal third person.

Over the course of this small book, the reader travels with Algeria and the bookstore through pre-war French colonialism, WWII, and Algeria’s war for independence, coming out into the present day in a city that feels like it’s in stasis (although there are early references to the economy suffering because Algeria’s oil reserves have dried up), and the people are holding their breath, waiting to see what happens next. Edmund Charlot comes across and a wonderful man; kind, generous, and someone who followed a vocation rather than a profession, and while I worried about his naiveté at the start of his career, and felt for him when things were so impossible in post-war Paris, I mourned with him at the senseless destruction that ultimately took him out of Algeria.

I ended up going with 4 stars because the ending did my head in. I really feel like I got a taste of Algiers, and I definitely felt Abdallah’s pain as the bookstore was slowly dismantled with so little feeling by the young intern, Ryad, sent to “throw everything away”. But the end … the end left me flipping pages and saying “what the hell?” to myself. I really want to be able to ask the author to explain herself. What was her motivation with this ending? Or perhaps I missed some nuance, some metaphor; perhaps I took then ending to literally. Either way, it was abrupt.

In spite of this, the book is the kind that will stay with me for some time to come, and I’ll “see” it in my memory as if it was something I experienced, rather than just read. I just have to forget about that ending.

The Garden of Small Beginnings

The Garden of Small Beginnings
by Abbi Waxman
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780751564860
Publication Date: February 27, 2018
Pages: 349
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Little Brown Book Group

In the three years since her husband died in a car accident, Lili has just about managed to resume her day-to-day life as a single mother and successful illustrator. She can now get her two girls to school, show up to work and watch TV like a pro. But there's still the small problem of the aching loss she feels inside.

When she's commissioned to illustrate a series of horticultural books, and signs up to a weekly gardening class, finally her life starts to bloom again.

The class provides Lili with a new network of unexpected friends - friends with their own heartaches and problems - and, maybe, another chance at love . . .

Ok, the second half of the book, while still hilarious became too predictable for me to rate this any higher than 4 stars, but it was still a very good story, with a writing style that is totally in my wheelhouse, with banter between the sisters that I found hilarious, and just an overall humorous voice to the narrative.

That’s not to say, however, that the story is pure fluff. On the contrary the MC is deeply grieving her husband’s not-really-recent death and her healing process is pretty raw and painful to read about. The predictability comes into play when she’s faced with someone she finds attractive, and the manipulative ability of her kids (although, as fictional kids go, these two were really likeable – especially the youngest) to mess with her recovery. A few scenes were uneven, but for the most part this was just a thoroughly fun read, with a beginners gardening class providing a focus for the story that added to my enjoyment.

I’m definitely going to check out what else, if anything, Abbi Waxman has written.

Naked Brunch

Naked Brunch
by Sparkle Hayter
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781842430422
Publication Date: May 1, 2002
Pages: 288
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: No Exit Press

Annie Engel hasn’t been feeling herself lately. With good reason. A mousy secretary by day, she’s been morphing into a werewolf at night. In the morning, she’s not quite sure what she’s been up to, but she knows she’d like to do it again. She soon discovers that her odd dreams and strange hangovers are actually the remnants of a night out on the prowl.

But Annie’s predatory activities have not gone unnoticed, and soon she is being pursued by one hapless reporter, a psychiatrist who wants to save her from her beastly impulses, and another (guy) werewolf who captures her heart. Who is a nice werewolf to trust? Get ready for a manic, madcap chase through the dank underbelly of the big city, a place where no one seems to sleep and the scents of fear and desire are always in the air.

Years ago, I read Sparkle Hayter’s mystery series featuring Robin Hudson, and enjoyed it tremendously. Years pass and I’m digging through a local used bookstore and stumbled across this completely different style of book, but the author’s name is not one that’s easily forgotten, so I grabbed it. It sounded funny.

I finally got around to reading it this year and it was every bit as good as I’d hoped it would be, and in fact, better, since I was wary over the different narrative style and genre. It’s also told in the third person, which can be tricky for me.

The story revolves primarily around Annie, the last nice girl in the big city (which, while never named explicitly, is NYC). She’s a secretary during the day and normally a door-mat for her two ‘best friends’ at night, being dragged from vapid party to vapid party while her two friends kill themselves to become famous. But lately, she’s been having weird dreams, and waking up in the morning covered in blood, to find broken bedroom windows, and the need to vomit up whatever she ate the night before, which seems to be meat, which is odd, as she’s a vegetarian.

Then there’s Jim – he’s a werewolf and he’s come back to the city after a self-imposed exile, the kind of exile where everybody thinks you’re dead. He runs into Annie one night when she’s not herself and they hit if off in a love-at-first-sight kind of way – if only he knew who she was or what she looked like in her less hirsute form…

Dr. Marco knows there’s a werewolf running around uncontrolled in the city and is frantic to find it, bring it into the center, and reform it using a tried and true method of drugs, restraints, and group therapy. If he can’t find it, his family will and they’ll put it down rather than risk exposure.

And then there’s Sam, the hapless, truly kind, incredibly lucky, has-been reporter, desperate to hold on to his wife and his career. He hears about the ‘vicious dog attacks’ that are leaving dead bodies all over the city and turns it into the career comeback he’d been hoping for, while the rest of the station’s crew, against their better judgement, turn themselves inside out to help him. Because he’s just no nice.

Annie has to choose between the chance at a normal life by submitting to Dr. Marco’s rehabilitation center, or being on the run, in love, and having hot animal (literally) sex. It’s a hard choice – especially amidst a city wide armed hunt for the mad-dog killers leaving dead bodies all over the place.

There’s a lot going on here, and I’m not even going to touch on all the ‘secondary’ characters from whom the reader occasionally hears from. The narrative starts off a little slowly, as it takes awhile to figure out who all the players are and what’s going on. But once everybody’s found their place, the story is fun, and a very different kind of morality tale. I love that the good guys get good stuff and the bad guys get … eaten. Or at least, what they deserve.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and I’ll likely read it again. I won’t call it speculative fiction, but it’s very different from the garden variety werewolf stories I’ve read before, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a different take on a common theme, done with a cynical sort of humor.

I read this for Halloween Bingo, and it easily qualifies for at least three squares: Shifters, Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses, and Gallows Humor, which allows me to invoke my first Spell Pack card: the all-new Double Trouble. I’m choosing to use it for the first two squares: Shifters and Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses.

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.