The Disappearance by J F Freedman

The Disappearance by J.F. Freedman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The daughter of a well known TV station owner is taken from her bedroom in the middle of the night while she has two other girls with her for a sleep-over. One of the girls awakens as Emma is being carried out of the bedroom, but it isn't until the next morning that everyone realizes that Emma has disappeared. A local search does not reveal Emma's whereabouts, and it isn't until days later that her body is found, dumped by a mountain stream. An arrest is eventually made, and Luke Garrison, a once very well known and respected prosecutor agrees to defend the man charged with killing Emma. After Garrison successfully prosecutes and secures a conviction in a former case that leads to the execution of an innocent man, Garrison stepped down as prosecutor and left town to live in obscurity trying to deal with his guilt over the faulty verdict. He is drawn back into the defense of a man who is a friend of Emma's family but swears he did not kill her. The accused is the anchor for the TV network owned by Emma's father.



This is a tightly crafted novel of suspense that starts off quickly and never let's up until the surprising finish. I have found all the books I've read by Freedman over the years to be written with this same level of tension, excellent character development, and twists and turns I didn't see coming. The character of Luke Garrison is especially well done; he is a man tortured by his having sent an innocent man to be executed and desperately wanting to right that wrong, if he can, with this involved, complicated, and murky defense. I did not know until the very end when it was revealed who did murder Emma, and I was very well entertained on the path to finding out who did it. I highly recommend J F Freedman's books to anyone.who enjoys reading well written plots with characters that are interesting, complicated, clever, and realistically drawn.

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Top Down by Jim Lehrer

Top Down by Jim Lehrer The premise for Top Down is a "what-if" question. What if the bubble top on the car in which JFK was riding in the Dallas motorcade in which he was assassinated had not been removed by a Secret Service Agent? The Secret Service had ordered the top removed because the earlier inclement weather had passed, and JFK preferred as many people as possible could view him without the visual obstruction of the bubble top. Had the top been left in place, would JFK's life been spared by the plexiglass bubble serving to stop the bullets Oswald shot from the book depository OR would the bullets have penetrated the top, possibly killing everyone inside the car?

Jack Gilmore, a reporter for the Dallas Tribune is approached by Mardi Walters, daughter of Secret Service Officer, Van Walters, to help her in performing an experiment replicating the shooting. It's 5 years after JFK was murdered, and Agent Van Walters holds himself personally responsible for the successful assassination attempt. He believes if the top had remained in place, JFK would have survived because he would have been shielded from the bullets. Reporter Jack Gilmore was at the site when the decision was made by Van Walters to remove the plexiglass, and he remembers the aftermath when questions were asked about who ordered the top to be removed. Now, these 5 years later, Van Walters has become unable to function either at work or in his personal life because of his crushing guilt over Kennedy's death. Daughter Mardi believes that because Gilmore was present that day he is best suited to help her recreate the situation. Against his better judgment, Gilmore agrees to help on an "off the record" agreement meaning he will be unable to use any information he gets from the Walters family in writing an article for his newspaper about this experiment, or even more important to Gilmore, writing an entire book about the experience.

This forms the basis for, what was for me, a very disappointing book. I'd not read any of Jim Lehrer's books before, but I was certainly aware of his presence as a PBS news personality. So it was particularly shocking to me to see the very amateurish writing skills exhibited in the ARC I read. Not only was the writing poor and often very awkward during conversations between the characters, but for someone who has published as many books as Mr Lehrer has, the story itself was poorly done. For me, it never became even remotely relevant. Never mind the time frame of the book, we are now nearly at the 50 year anniversary of Kennedy's death. Is anyone still debating questions about the judgment in removing the bubble top. Seriously?? Wouldn't that question been asked and answered about a bazillion times in all the conspiracy debates? Wouldn't someone have been able to replicate the event in their own backyard and shared conclusions with the public at large years and years ago?

I can't recommend this book to anyone. I learned nothing new about the Kennedy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, Lyndon Johnson, or any of the other main participants in the event. Since there are scant details included about the crime that shattered the USA, I can't recommend the book based on historical significance either. As a result I'm giving this book a 2 Star Review.

I was given an ARC for this book from Net Galley in return for which I agreed to do an honest review.

Seven Deadlies by Gigi Levangie

I received an ARC of this book from Penguin Publishing in exchange for an honest review.. "Seven Deadlies" is the story of the seven deadly sins as interpreted by a fourteen year old girl who uses her life experience tutoring other students as the basis from which she draws her conclusions about the ways in which other people live. The biggest influence in Perry Gonzalez's life is her mother, Yelena Maria Gonzalez, who makes her living as an RN. Perry has a very full life as a tutor and a student herself, so she doesn't have a lot of friends her own age, and she has no siblings. As a result, she becomes close to and involved in the lives of those she tutors as well as the lives of their families. Whenever she becomes confused by the twists and turns her student's lives take, she turns to her mother who always helps her with wise advice about troublesome behavior.

Perry Gonzalez is a very, very smart girl both in measurable IQ numbers as well as people skills. She is only fourteen years old, but she has written these stories as her admission letter to Bennington School where she would like to continue her education and dream of becoming a writer after she graduates from Mark Frost Academy. Currently Perry attends Mark Frost Academy on a scholarship since she comes from a one parent, underprivileged background. In spite of the fact that everyone else at Perry's school has far more material glam than she does, Perry is content making $40 an hour tutoring and watching her bank balance grow. She says she wants to be sure she has some spending money when she gets to Bennington.

The stories Perry tells about Lust, Wrath, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, and Pride are all well thought out. Some of the stories are hilarious, some are grim, and one in particular I thought was heartbreaking. All of the stories showcase Gigi Levangie's ability to write from the perspective of a young, teenaged girl who has a good imagination and a talent for story telling. The surnames Perry gives her people were often hilarious, and even though I should probably contain myself better at my age, I still get the giggles over Porscha Crisp Blogsnot. Never mind trying to say that out loud. I just can't do it.

All of this, in my view, adds up to a quirky, funny, interesting, and very entertaining book. It reminded me somewhat of the movie Se7en, only without all the blood and the box at the end. The book even has a Brad Pitt kinda guy! And then I came to the last two chapters. After reading them, I had to go back to read them again. Then I had to sit for a bit and think about all I'd read. There's a twist at the end that stunned me. It didn't change my mind about how good I think this book is; it did make me view it, however, from a different angle. It also made me cry. Add to that the wonderful, stark, haunting images from Cecelia Ruiz, and I think this is one of the best books I've read in a while. I look forward to catching up on Gigi Levangie's previous work as well as anything she does in the future. Seven Deadlies is definitely a keeper.

The Courtroom Massacre by Mark Porto

The Courtroom Massacre by Mark Porto

In the movie Funny Farm, Andy Farmer quits his job as a sports writer so he and his school teacher wife, Elizabeth can move to the small town of Redbud, Vermont. They buy a picturesque little farm where Andy plans to pursue his dream of writing a novel. Shortly after they move to Redbud, the Farmers celebrate their wedding anniversary; Andy takes Elizabeth into town for dinner and surprises her with a plan to stay overnight at the local motel. He also surprises Elizabeth with his anniversary gift to her -- the first few chapters of his novel in progress. He goes out to buy some champagne while Elizabeth starts reading the novel; Andy is impatient to have her immediate reaction to the book he has poured his heart, soul, and creativity into. When he returns he finds Elizabeth speechless. She tells him she could not follow the plot of the book; Andy wants her to tell him how he can fix it. Elizabeth's reply is, "Burn it." That is exactly what someone should have advised Mark Porto to do with The Courtroom Massacre. Don't even hesitate for a moment; just burn it.

I do not say this lightly. I have a great deal of respect for anyone who manages to write a book. I know it's difficult because I've tried, and I'm terrible at it. I'm much better at reading than trying to tell a story in book form. Which is why I feel it necessary to review this book so harshly. I read roughly 100 books a year, and that's on a slow year. I've been reading since I'm 5 years old. That's lots and lots of books read and for the most part enjoyed. This book, The Courtroom Massacre is the poorest excuse for a book I've ever read. Yes, ever. It had no sense of sentence structure; it was full of sentence fragments, and there was no rhyme or reason to chapter separations. The story was told in whatever verb tense the writer felt like using at the moment. We start out in present tense, and then we jump around to past tense or whatever tense the flip of the coin chose. There was no adherence to correct pronoun use. One sentence may refer to someone as "him", the next sentence referred to the same person as "her". There is no continuity to the plot; in fact the whole premise of the plot was absurd. The hero, Johnny, interrupts an armed robbery in his parent's convenience store. He shoots and kills at least one of the bandits. It is a clear matter of self-defense. And then, for no apparent reason Johnny is arrested for murder. There is some outlandish reasoning why this happens, and the rest of the book tries to show the reasons for it. It is so convoluted I gave up all attempts at understanding what or why anything was happening.

I received a free copy of this book at NetGalley in return for an honest review. I cannot be more honest than: do not waste your money or your time on this book. If GoodReads allowed no stars for reviews, I would argue for the option of minus stars for this mess. I did finish the book, but it became more of an endurance test than an enjoyable reading experience. In fact, I consider this book an insult to people like me who love to read.

The Three Muskateers by Alexandre Dumas

The Three Muskateers by Alexandre Dumas

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I don't usually blast the classics, but I have to make an exception for this one. I had NO idea The Three Muskateers was a rendition of Disney characters meeting The Three Stooges, with a little Adam Sandler thrown in for heart. Forget all about basic writing procedures like character or basic logical plot development. Those things do not exist here. Dumas never uses one or two words when 347 will do instead, so there's heavy doses of nonsense interspersed with lots and lots of behavior that makes absolutely no sense. Even taking into consideration that times were different when this was published, and the novel takes place in another country, there's no accounting for the outright stupidity of the people and their behavior. Besides all this, why does no one ever point out that Dumas simply couldn't count to four? There were not Three Muskateers by the end of the book; there were four. Further, the book itself was more about that fourth guy than it was about the other threesome. (This is not a spoiler, by the way. It is revealed at the beginning of the novel that we're going to be dealing with four dimwitted men, not three.)

I thought maybe there was a benefit to reading this novel just for the historical significance. Wrong again. Absolutely nothing redeems this book. What's worse is that it's part of a trilogy, and guess who bought the whole set! Yep, that would be me. I can't wait to see what happens 20 years after the first one ends.... NOT!!! :)



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Crossing California by Adam Langer

Crossing California by Adam Langer


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The first review I read about this book gave me the impression that the Americans taken hostage from the Iranian embassy under the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini played some part in the substance of this story. Only insofar as a time reference does the hostage crisis have any bearing on any part of the story that takes place in Crossing California. That misunderstanding coupled with the misleading title of this book made it somewhat disappointing for me from the beginning. Crossing California is very much like a Seinfeld television episode; it's really all about nothing.

Which is not to say that the book isn't entertaining, because for the most part it is. It's just that in spite of its humor and attempts at delving into the psyches of 3 different families, this is a story about the small episodes that make up the details of life as young people struggle and blunder on their trek through the terrible teens.

There's a lot of material about what it's like growing up Jewish during the early 80's in Chicago. There's also a lot of terms that most likely are very familiar to Jewish readers, but Gentiles like me never heard of the majority of it. The author, however, has provided plenty of context, so it's not really important to be familiar with principles of the Jewish religion and culture to understand the book. There are times these references are hilarious; there are also times when they're nothing but tedious.

It might be interesting to read another book by Adam Langer because I did appreciate the way he writes. I just wasn't very impressed with his story this time around.

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The End Of The Pier by Martha Grimes

The End of the Pier by Martha Grimes



My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I've never been able to "get" Martha Grimes. It's not that I outright don't like her books; it's more that I just don't know what she's trying to get her characters to convey. The End Of The Pier is the perfect example of this. I'm not sure if the characters in this book are deep (as in profound thinkers), crazy, or maybe just flat out stupid.

There's a serial killer loose in Elton County, a small town-America rustic area, only no one seems to have put together the clues indicating that the murders of women which have taken place over time are connected. What law enforcement exists in the area is lazy at best and clueless at worst. Except for the local sheriff, Sam DeGheyn, who believes the wrong man has been tried and convicted for the murders. However, Sam's got a screwed up personal life, so his full attention is not quite concentrated on the murders. Besides that, Sam isn't getting a lot of cooperation from his fellow county law enforcement officers.

One of the main characters through whom this story is revealed is Maud Chadwick. Maud's thought process is all over the place which, to me, made her annoying and ornery rather than helpful in figuring out what is going on around her. I wanted to like Maud, I really did, but just about the time I thought she'd offered some genuine insight, she'd go and spoil it all by uttering stream of consciousness drivel.

As for the mystery of who is killing the women of Elton County: by the time I reached the end of the book I really couldn't have cared less. I was just glad I'd reached the last page so I could pack this book up to donate to Good Will.

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Talking To Strange Men by Ruth Rendell

Talking to Strange Men by Ruth Rendell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After stumbling upon and reading hidden messages from one group member to another, John Creevey believes he has uncovered an espionage ring or possibly an underground mafia group planning crimes and even murder. What he's really found is a harmless game played by school boys in which coded messages are hidden in what the boys believe is a "safe drop" away from the prying eyes of adults. Creevey's interference in the harmless pranks and plots of these boys forms the basis for Rendell's story.

What I like most about Ruth Rendellbooks is the psychology she includes with her characters. The reader comes to know what motivates the people in her stories; what makes them do what they do, and how they've arrived at the thought process with behavior that moves the story forward.

All of the men in Talking To Strange Men could be classified as "strange" in some way. Some will go to great lengths just to get attention. Others are lonely and because they have no lives to speak of, everything that happens to them becomes magnified beyond its real importance. Even the schoolboys involved in their competitive games with complicated codes and clever tricks each participate in this activity for their own specific reasons outside of the obvious inducement of having fun.

I'd recommend this book or any book by Ruth Rendell to anyone who enjoys reading about characters who have depth and will often surprise the reader by what they do next.

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The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje



My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes I think the people who judge the prestigious book awards and choose the winner, deliberately go out of their way to award some book that's nearly unreadable. Books that fall into this category generally have little to no plot that's discernible to the reader's naked eye, and at best the book is written as a half-baked stream of consciousness muddle. In my opinion, it is those who make it through reading these kinds of books who deserve the awards; NOT the authors who scribble them on the backs of envelopes or on matchbook covers.

That said, The English Patient does have some redeeming qualities about it. It is, after all, written from the perspective of a man who is badly injured, heavily sedated, and is working his way though amnesia to remember the details of his life. In my opinion the best written passages in this book involve those that take place in the wartime situations. Michael Ondaatje has written serveral riveting passages, one in particular involving dismantling a bomb, that kept me on the edge of my seat, not even realizing I was holding my breath until the outcome was revealed.

And then we get back to the real crux of the story, Ondaatje goes meandering all over the page while my mind wanders toward what I could be reading instead of this.

From a historical point of view, The English Patient was well done. Strictly from the point of view of the characters who fleshed out Ondaatje's story, most of them were not likable, sympathetic people no matter what situation landed them in the story. Worst of all was the English Patient himself who, for me at least, remained at the end of the book as he was in the beginning, just a sedated man who spent day after day in a bed being cared for by a dedicated, but hard to understand, nurse. I would only recommend this book to people who like their reading material to be dry and dull.

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The Last Brother by Joe McGinniss

The Last Brother by Joe McGinniss


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Joseph P Kennedy, father of brothers Joseph, John, Robert, and Edward believed: "It's not what you are that counts, but only what people think you are."

That sums up what the myths surrounding the Kennedy family are all about. Created by the Kennedys and furthered by an adoring media, Americans came to elevate the Kennedys to the status of royalty for over 3 decades. It is from this point of view that Joe McGinniss has written The Last Brother: The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy. McGinniss states in his Author's Note at the end of his book that he wanted to write an account that took into consideration what it felt like to be Edward Kennedy; or to have some understanding and empathy for what it was like to deal with the pressure of being the fat little brother who wasn't up to competing with his older, more accomplished siblings. For the most part, I think McGinniss did what he set out to do in that regard; but, there were times when McGinniss came dangerously close to suggesting we have sympathy for Edward Kennedy.

McGinniss begins his book with the assassination of President John F Kennedy. He illustrates from this grim example how little Teddy Kennedy knew of his family's plans for the future and what exactly those plans entailed. The father of the Kennedy clan, Joseph P Kennedy, was the mastermind behind a plan to bring the Kennedy name to power in the US as a dynasty unto themselves. Through his fortune he was able to manipulate or outright buy any outcome he wanted in any given situation. Joseph Jr, Jack, and Bobby each understood and were primed for their specific roles in the plan. Having come along almost as an afterthought to the family, Teddy was given no specific outline of his role, and from childhood on he more or less flew by the seat of his pants. When his brother Jack was assassinated, he had no idea what to do, where to be, nor any idea how to perform. He was unprepared to serve his family in any capacity at all much less become an example to his country of how royalty behaves under fire.

The material presented as fact in McGinniss' book is a matter of public reacord, and the bibliography McGinniss lists at the end of the book is extensive. He did his research. What gets somewhat murky is assuming McGinniss knows what Ted Kennedy thought which motivated him to behave as he did through the many crises in his life. And it is within some of those passages that it seemed to me there was occasionally too much of a plea for sympathy to Kennedy. Empathy I may be able to grasp, but sympathy? Not in any lifetime.

The picture that emerges of Teddy Kennedy as viewed through the facts, in my opinion, remains one of an irresponsible, cowardly, indecisive, dissipated, philandering boy/man who came far too close to becoming President of the United States based on the myth surrounding his family name rather than the facts of his life. For that reason, I'd recommend reading this book just to see the process by which something like this can happen. One would hope the lesson learned would be to never allow a man like Ted Kennedy or a family like his to so invade the national interests of our country again because there are no messiahs in the political spectrum or any other spectrum for that matter. Unfortunately, it appears that lesson was not learned and it continues to happen all over again.

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The Senator by Richard E Burke

The Senator: My Ten Years with Ted Kennedy by Richard E. Burke

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For 10 years Richard E Burke served as an aide to Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. Burke's duties included literally running the Senator's life for him both professionally and personally. That makes this book a highly subjective biography of Kennedy since Burke reports that among other things he and The Senator shared were drug use and some of the same women. Given the level of drug use to which both men subjected themselves, there is often good reason to question the accuracy of what Burke reports. The chapter on the Kennedy visit to Russia in 1978 is a good example of this; it reads more like an episode from Get Smart than it does like a Senator's state visit to a foreign country. However, much of what Burke writes about is a matter of public record; all he's done is flesh out more details.

Burke reports that one of Kennedy's female acquaintances defines the Senator as a pig. After applying the standards for defining a pig (if it looks like a pig, sounds like a pig, and exhibits frequent piggish behavior, you've got yourself a pig), there is no reason to find fault with this evaluation of Kennedy's behavior with this particular acquaintance. Given the fact that his behavior with other women was similar to this one experience, it is only logical to accept this definition of his private behavior as accurate.

Given the recent death of Ted Kennedy, there is so much material being aired in the media to suggest he was some larger than life character who exhibited nothing but bravery, intelligence, and respect for his country, his family, and his constituents. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The Senator, My Ten Years With Ted Kennedy is one place to get a more realistic picture of this controversial figure in American history.

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Silent Snow by Steve Thayer

Silent Snow by Steve Thayer

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars
The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in 1932 forms the backdrop for this very well written thriller/mystery. In Minnesota in 1999, Rick Beanblossom's baby boy is kidnapped from his nursery crib just as the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped 67 years previously. Beanblossom's wife, Andrea Labore is a television media star, while Rick is a well-known print media reporter. They both are celebrities, and they both, by virtue of what they do for a living, have numerous contacts thanks to work associations both currently and from previous jobs. However, when their son is kidnapped they are just as much at the mercy of those who took their son as anyone else in their position might be.

By shifting the action back and forth between 1932 and the present, we follow the parallels between the two different kidnappings. There are many similarities between the two cases. In 1932 the Lindbergh case was closed when Bruno Hauptmann was found guilty and executed for the crime. However, because of the uniformity of the current crime to the former one, serious doubt is placed upon the assumption that Bruno Hauptmann committed the kidnapping of Baby Lindbergh alone. Beanblossom begins to suspect Hauptmann had an accomplice and that this accomplice is now working out of Minnesota on a similar plan to extort money from wealthy parents.

Once I began reading Silent Snow, I found it difficult to put the book down. Steve Thayer maintained a level of tension throughout the book that kept me turning the pages as fast as I could read them. Apparently Thayer had one book before this one, The Weatherman, in which the characters who appear in Silent Snow make their debut. Based upon this book, I'd be willing to read anything more Thayer has written. He's created some interesting characters, and it would be interesting to see where he takes them from here.


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Flying In Place by Susan Palwick

Flying in Place by Susan Palwick

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Flying In Place won The Crawford Award for Susan Palwick in 1993. The Crawford Award is presented to books falling into the fantasy genre. While it's true that there are aspects of this book that qualify it for the fantasy category, I wouldn't necessarily have categorized it that way.

Flying In Place is the story of Emma and her family: her surgeon father, her school teacher mother, and her sister who died before Emma was born. From all indications Emma lives in a normal family situation, but in fact, nothing about Emma's home life is "normal". Emma receives pre-dawn visits in her bedroom from her father. To spare herself the trauma of these visits, Emma projects her mind out of her body up to the ceiling of her bedroom where she can fly and avoid dealing with the assaults on her body by her father. I didn't read this situation so much as fantasy as I did the matter of mental self preservation.

While the writing is descriptive about the abuse Emma suffers, it never becomes graphic so that this book is suitable reading for adolescent girls.

The subject matter of Flying In Place is certainly distasteful, but the message it conveys is so well written that once started, the book is almost impossible to put down.

Highly recommended particularly to young girls whether or not they've experienced this kind of abuse. It never hurts to be informed, particularly on subjects such as this one.


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More Than It Hurts You by Darin Strauss

More Than It Hurts You by Darin Strauss

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars
More Than It Hurts You by Darin Strauss is the story of Josh and Dori Goldin, their son Zack, and Dr Darlene Stokes. When Zack Goldin becomes ill, he is taken to the hospital by his mother, and he is treated there by Dr Stokes. Until Zack was born, Dori Goldin worked as a phlebotomist in a hospital, so she was familiar with various procedures and tests and knew exactly what questions to ask the doctors with respect to Zack's treatment. By the time Josh reached the hospital to find out what had happened to Zack, Dori had already had a confrontation with Dr Weiss, the resident on the case as well as Dr Stokes, head of pediatrics.

Dr Stokes became suspicious of Dori's behavior in the emergency room, and after a second ER visit with Zack exhibiting the same symptoms, Dr Stokes narrowed her suspicions down to Munchausen's Syndrome By Proxy. This was a controversial accusation to make since this syndrome is rare, and because there had been a string of cases where parents had been accused of harming their child when in fact they had not. Relying on her conviction that Dori Goldin was harming her child, Dr Stokes set in motion the steps needed to protect Zack from further harm.

What I liked most about More Than It Hurts You is the way Strauss takes the reader inside the thoughts of the principals involved. It is Josh who is the least knowledgeable about the events taking place concerning Zack and his condition. He relies heavily on his wife to explain to him what the doctors are talking about. His opinions are all formed based upon his wife's word, and for a long time it never occurs to him to question that.

While I do think there were times the story slowed considerably because of too much explanation of the various thoughts and feelings of the characters, it was fascinating to me to read the various thought processes and see what influenced them. I thought Strauss also did a good job of showing what a mess bureaucrats make of sensitive case like this one, and how what begins as concern for the safety of a child soon becomes lost in matters having nothing whatsoever to do with that main issue. I thought Strauss did a very good job of illustrating how easily we become distracted by matters irrelevant to the main concern, particularly when lawyers, hospital administrators, and the media become involved.

I enjoy books that deal with what motivates people to do what they do, and how they can rationalize almost anything to satisfy their own objectives. I recommend this books to anyone who also enjoys this type of story.


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Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

Await Your Reply: A Novel by Dan Chaon

My review

Rating: 5 of 5 stars
In his Acknowledgments at the end of Await Your Reply, Dan Chaon recognizes many authors who have influenced his work. He mentions that these writers are "better writers who inspired me." In my opinion, Chaon deserves a place right in the middle of those authors, and they would certainly be proud to include him in their number. While I was reading Await Your Reply, I had this nagging feeling that parts of it reminded me of something, but I couldn't put my finger on what. Then I read the Acknowledgments and that blub lit up in my head... THAT'S IT!!! This part reminds me of this author; that part reminds me of that author. And THIS part reminds me of one of my all time favorite authors. Not a copy, mind you, because Chaon is unique. But I could see that influence, and it made this book special to me.

From the beginning of Await Your Reply there was, for me, a sense of dread that kept building and building until the end of the book when, thanks to a very satisfying finish, it all becomes clear. Unline Chaon's You Remind Me Of Me, I didn't find these characters so sympathetic. Fascinating, yes, and that's what kept me reading. First I wanted to know what connected these seemingly unrelated individuals; then I wanted to know what on earth happened to them all. By the time I got into the second half of the book, I could not put it down.

As in You Remind Me Of Me, Chaon's characters are, at least on the surface upon first meeting them, ordinary people with problems just like everyone else. But as the pages go by, it becomes clear that these people may be the sort who live right next door to you, but they are not ordinary. That's what I like most about Chaon's writing. He knows that while the overall picture may give the appearance of the mundane, everyone's-got-a-cross-to-bear, for each person the circumstances of life are not commonplace at all. In fact, those life experiences are often extraordinary. I really enjoyed the way in which Chaon wrote about how that works. And I want to read more of him.

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You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I found out that I'd won a copy of the new book Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon I also discovered that I had a copy of his previous book, You Remind Me of Me on my TBR shelf. So, before I received my First-Read selection, I read his earlier work which had some how or other managed to slip between the cracks of my TBR pile.

I enjoy books that tell a story from the different characters' perspectives. That's what Chaon does in You Remind Me Of Me. He's given the reader 3 distinctive main characters who tell most of the story, and there's 2 lesser characters that help to fill in the spaces. But over all of that there is another presence as well. A mother who has left her child and made no effort whatsoever to stay in touch with him. The child, Loomis, becomes the focal point for 2 brothers and a grandmother who love him and all say they want only the best for him, but who each have either no clue how to best take care of Loomis or are so convinced their way is the only way that it becomes clear Loomis is never going to benefit from this approach at all.


What Chaon does so well throughout You Mind Me Of Me is create a mood that pulled me into the lives of ordinary people. Except as more and more of the story is revealed, it becomes clear that there's nothing ordinary about the lives any of the people in this book. Society expects a certain conformity among people, but what happens when individuals have been given no tools from birth to help them figure out out to deal with the everyday business of living or the common sense to deal with more tragic events they encounter? I thought Chaon handled some intricate situations very well for his characters, and he made each of them, no matter what we may think of their behavior, sympathetic.

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Saints In Limbo by River Jordan

Saints in Limbo by River Jordan

My review

Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Now THIS is what storytelling is all about! I'd previously read an earlier River Jordan book, The Messenger Of Magnolia Street, and loved her writing style. She has a way with describing people and places that brings them to life and allows the reader to clearly "see" them in the mind's eye. Her events are so well written it's as though the characters pulled up a chair for the reader and invited her to sit right down and live through the experience with them.

Velma True had a long and mainly fulfilling marriage to Joe True. When he died, a part of Velma died with him. After experiencing a frightening incident in her front yard shortly after Joe's death, Velma was afraid to leave her front porch without the security of a thread tied to the porch and extending to wherever she wanted to go. There was more than one thread attached to the porch documenting Velma's trips from safety into a world that now scared her.

When Velma receives a visit from a man, a stranger to her, and he gives her what appears to be simply a flat, smooth rock, she doesn't quite know what to make of it. But she soon finds out that the rock can give her back some of what she thought was lost: time with Joe through memories that seem very present and real. The stranger who left the rock with Velma also gave her a warning that what she now possessed would come with a price because there were those who wanted what Velma had, and she would not be safe in the presence of those visitors.

There are other characters with whom Velma interacts. People who love her and believe getting out of her house and off that porch without the security of her threads would be good for her. River Jordan gives each of those characters traits and individuality that sets aside each one in the story to his or her own personality. As they all develop we see how they fit into the overall story, and we find each person's motivation believable.

Saints In Limbo is a story about hope and growing awareness about who we are and how we got to be that way. What I liked most about it was Jordan's grasp of growing older and how that unstoppable force of nature changes a person at what appears to be the end of her or his life. Hope can slip away without one's even being aware of it, but it can be recaptured and enjoyed for whatever life is left to live.

I look forward with great anticipation to whatever story River Jordan shares with her readers next.




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When You Come Home by Nora Eisenberg

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Anthony Bravo and Lily Engels grew up together. When Lily was orphaned, Anthony's mother took her in and raised her as her own child. Both Anthony's father and Lily's father died as a result of the Vietnam War. When Anthony is sent to serve in the Gulf War, Lily realizes her feelings for Anthony are more romantic than brotherly. She confesses this to Anthony in a letter, and by the time he comes home from the Gulf War, he believes he feels the same way about Lily. The story begins as Anthony arrives home. He's exhausted and facing some big adjustments both in his personal and professional life. Lily now begins to pursue her dream of being married to and starting a family with Anthony.



Lily is the ultimate dreamer. She can picture and mentally map out the life she wants for herself and Tony, and no matter what problems introduce themselves into her long term plan, she works around them convinced she can still have her dream life.



Tony is more pragmatic, but then he has to be. He needs to find a job and there are suddenly roadblocks to the one he thought he'd have. There is a stressful time while Tony tries to straighten out a problem with his college credits; it is Lily who helps him fix the problem. At the same time as this crisis is unfolding and holding up Tony's efforts to get on with his life, he finds out that friends of his with whom he served in the Gulf War are getting sick. His friends' symptoms are all physical, but the VA doctors who treat the men blame the illness on psychological trauma. They are given antidepressants and sent home. Those most severely affected by the mysterious illness do not get better, and eventually after receiving the wrong treatment it becomes clearer and clearer that the problem is not psychological. It's physical, and it probably is the effect of something encountered in the Gulf War. In fact, the cause may be an agent released by the US military. Eventually some of the men are put on the right track to treatment, but there's no assurance that they will be cured, and for some, the treatment is too late in coming.



Nora Eisenberg has written an important book. While her characters may be fictional, the story they tell is not. We send our military into battle under the assumption they are protecting their country. But who is there when they come home, having been poisoned by God only knows what, to protect them? Why is our military being subjected to inadequate medical treatment at a time when they should be receiving the best, most advanced treatment we have to offer?



Some of the victims of the Gulf War were every bit as much victims of that encounter as those against whom we fought. We still do not have all the data necessary to evaluate how those who've served in Iraq fared. Reading When You Come Home made me more aware than ever that if we're going to ask a volunteer army to keep us safe, we should do our very best to afford them the same or at least address their medical problems with competence as quickly as possible.


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The Copper Beech by Maeve Binchy

The Copper Beech by Maeve Binchy

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars
In Shancarrig, the copper beech tree stands in front of the local schoolhouse. This tree is the place where school children traditionally carve their initials and those of their loves. Of course there's a story behind each of the names on the trunk of that tree, and this book explores some of the individuals whose lives connected at a particular time in Shancarrig's history. As each new character is introduced we see how lives are intertwined and relationships are formed or broken.


What I like about Maeve Binchy's books is her ability to create characters that become people we care about. Whether we like them or not, Binchy makes them believable. And in writing each individual's story separately in this book, we see each person's point of view and the motivation for his or her behavior. As more people are introduced and we see how they are connected to one another, we also see how the impressions we have about acquaintances may be far off the mark of what's really going on in their lives.


I think Maeve Binchy has a great deal of insight into small town life. She has a knack for illustrating how we can believe we know our neighbors, co-workers, and even our friends so well; however, we never know quite as much as we think we do. While it's true that we may reveal more of ourselves than we realize, it's also true that we manage to hide a great deal as well.


I particularly liked the way Binchy ended The Copper Beech. We live in such a fast paced and often cynical world; it's nice to read a story in which people's differences do not detract from the fact that they care about and do look out for one another.


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The Other Daughter by Lisa Gardner

The Other Daughter by Lisa Gardner

My review

Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Russell Lee Holmes murdered 6 young children, and the state of Texas is executing him for his crimes. One Of the children Holmes has confessed to murdering is Meagan Stokes, the daughter of a Texas physician and his wife. A reporter covering the story of Holmes' execution knows that Holmes himself has a child, but no one knows the location of this child or the child's mother. When Holmes is executed, that secret dies with him... or so everyone believes. The night Holmes dies, a 9 year old girl shows up in the hospital where Meagan's father works. She has no memory of who she is or where she came from. Eventually Stokes and his wife adopt this girl and name her Melanie Stokes. She fills the gaping void left by the murder of her "sister" Meagan.


So begins the story of the Stokes family. Years pass, the family leaves Texas, and the Stokes' household moves on with their lives. And then a series of strange events begin to happen starting with the arrival in town of the reporter who originally covered Russell Lee Holmes and his crimes. The implication is that Melanie Stokes is the child of Russell Lee Holmes. Whether or not that's true, it becomes clear that there's circumstances surrounding Melanie's first 9 years and subsequent adoption that someone wants to reveal. This puts the whole Stokes family in jeopardy of falling apart.


There are enough twists and turns in this story to keep the reader guessing right up until the end. I thought some of those events were a bit contrived, but there's no denying that this was a page turner that kept me trying to figure out who was doing what to whom throughout.








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