The Nature of Fragile Things

Finished May 11

The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner

In 1905 Sophie Whalen is a young immigrant from Ireland sharing a tenement room in New York City with other young women. She answers an advertisement from a San Francisco man, Martin Hocking, who is looking for a wife and a mother to his young daughter Kat. He sends the money for her to take the train west and marries her the day she arrives, but he doesn't push her to have a physical relationship until she's comfortable. Martin works for an insurance company and travels a lot for his job, sometimes being away multiple days at a time.

There are things that cause Sophie to have questions, but she is also happy to be living in the circumstances she is in now. Martin is very handsome and well off enough to live in a nice neighbourhood and well-equipped home. Why would he have to advertise for a wife? Why is Kat so quiet? Is it just the loss of her mother or are there more reasons? Why doesn't Martin introduce her to any of his work colleagues since that was part of the reason he said he needed a wife? What is going on with the second business line that he is suddenly working with? 

More than a year after she arrived in the city, Belinda Bigelow, a young pregnant woman, appears on her doorstep looking for Martin, hoping he has some information on Belinda's husband, but the women soon learn that the connections are closer than expected. As the two women piece together their stories and Kat's history, and make plans to leave, a massive earthquake takes place. They flee the house together with Kat, first to a temporary hospital, then to a city park filled with other refugees from the quake and subsequent fires. Eventually they make their way to Belinda's home south of the city, but soon learn that Martin has been there since she left. Sophie must return to the city to see if Martin is there, and if not, to file a missing persons report. That and the ongoing police interest in the case cause Sophie to worry about her own secrets that she hoped to leave behind. 

A story of relationships, those that mistreat others in a variety of ways, and what women might do to ensure their own safety and the safety of those they care about.

Francine's Spectacular Crash & Burn

Finished October 10

Francine's Spectacular Crash & Burn by Renee Swindle

The title character of this novel completely drew me in. She's a people pleaser, a young woman who was both dependent on her mother in some ways and supportive of her mother in others. When her mother dies suddenly, she is lost. She knows how the close relatives she has will react and avoids telling them, doing the necessary tasks when someone has died. Francine is also a hard worker at her job, a social media company called Peeps that connects people to others with the same interests. She is a glorified secretary for her boss Hayden, doing work that includes not only booking meetings and such but personal tasks like laundry and getting her coffee.

Soon after her mother's death, Francine hears a ruckus out on the street and ends up rescuing ten-year-old Davie from a group of bullies trying to take his iPad. After more encounters with Davie, the two connect in a way, both feeling like outsiders and suffering from loss. When Francine discovers that Davie's foster mother is Jeannette, a strong-willed woman with a temper that Francine had a crush on in high school, she grows close to her as well. 

As Francine struggles between trying to move forward with her newly rekindled interest in photography, and meeting new people, she also finds herself drawn to Jeanette for reasons in addition to wanting to maintain a relationship with Davie.

Francine has undeserved guilt and makes some bad choices, but she is well-intentioned and lonely, and she ends up finding friendship and support in unexpected places, and finding the strength to pull herself out of her own mess. 

I really liked Francine and found myself caring about her and about Davie. Highly recommended. 

Sorry, Bro

Finished July 13

Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni

In San Francisco, Nareh Bedrossian is focused on her career as a journalist, working six days a week and hoping her boss gives her a chance at a story beyond the human interest stories she's been given up to now. She lives with her mother and grandmother and her Armenian heritage is very much a part of her life, despite her father's efforts to Americanize their family. Her long-term boyfriend Trevor is also a hard worker, and when he springs a proposal on her in a busy bar surrounded by drunken tech sector workers, she is struck dumb. He is off to business meetings overseas for a few weeks, so she has some time to really analyze how she feels and what she should do now.

She tells her mother about her uncertainty, and her mother, finally emerging from the deep grief she has over Nareh's father's death, pushes her into looking for love within her own culture. Explore Armenia, a big cultural event that happens every three years, is beginning, and Nareh's mom has her sign up for numerous events to meet eligible men. Her mom also does research through her many connections and comes up with a list of possibilities for her. 

Nareh does find herself captivated by someone she meets at her very first event, but that person is Erebuni, a woman. Nareh has identified as bisexual for years, but since she's been with Trevor for years, her attraction to Erebuni is unexpected and a little scary. She is scared that her feelings won't be reciprocated, that her family won't accept her relationship, and that she isn't herself ready to be out of the closet. 

All of these things combine to force Nareh into making a choice. 

I found the Armenian aspect of this book to be overwhelming, with many terms not explained. I think it would be helpful if the author had a list of these terms with definitions at the back of the book. Still, her Armenian identity becomes such a big part of her life, personally and professionally, that it just felt somewhat unrealistic. I've read other romance books that exist in cultural groups, and haven't encountered this much culture overkill. 

An okay read, but I had to force my way through parts of it. 

The Dangerous Hour

Finished August 17

The Dangerous Hour by Marcia Muller

This is part of the Sharon McCone series, fairly far along, and she is celebrating a planned expansion for her agency when things start going bad. One of her agents in training is accused of stealing a client's credit card and purchasing items online with it. The client also files a complaint against the agency, meaning that Sharon's license could be in jeopardy. As she complies with investigators, she also researches old cases to see who might have a grudge against her and be capable of this kind of planned attack. 

Sharon is also mulling over a question her longtime partner Hy has posed to her.

This book has a fast-moving plot, with lots going on in terms of clues that Sharon and her investigators follow up on, both near and far. 

I also liked the storylines around helping people improve their circumstances through training and other social resources. 

The Lost and Found Bookshop

Finished July 22

The Lost and Found Bookshop by Susan Wiggs

This novel has both mystery and romance, plus a little history. Natalie Harper grew up with her mother and grandfather in an apartment above a bookshop in San Francisco. She didn't have a lot of contact with her father, but didn't feel that she really missed anything. 

Now she has a career in a California winery and a handsome boyfriend. As the book opens Natalie is made aware of her coworkers true feelings regarding her despite her excellent work, and finds herself disappointed that her mother hasn't come to celebrate her recent work success. 

But as she soon discovers, her mother intended to be there, and in one tragic incident, she has lost both her mother and her boyfriend. Additionally, Natalie now has the responsibility of the bookstore on her shoulders, and she finds her grandfather's memory issues more advanced than she imagined. 

Natalie throws herself into the bookstore, analyzing the debt her mother had incurred, the state of the historic building that houses both the bookstore and her childhood home, and the challenges of promotion and marketing books when people have migrated to more online purchasing. 

As she travels down this road of discovery and hopes for a miracle, she finds the contractor, Peach Gallagher, her mother arranged to meet more helpful and skilled than she could hope.Peach's young daughter Dorothy is also a big fan of both the store and Natalie's grandfather. 

It is Dorothy who is able to bring about a miracle of connecting Natalie with Trevor Dashwood, one of the hottest new children's authors who proves himself very supportive of both the shop and Natalie.

I really enjoyed seeing Natalie's character grow as she dealt with all these issues and learned the value that her skills are in this circumstance. Natalie also finds herself less isolated in the city, with connections and real friendship building her personal life into one more satisfying as well. Other key characters, like Peach, Dorothy, and her grandfather also go through changes during this time. This is a novel that has some tense moments, but ultimately brings a feeling of comfort. A novel with a lot going on, but one that never has you losing the main thread. 

Great read. 

The Geography of You and Me

Finished on February 16 

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

This teen novel opens with two teenagers Lucy, fifteen, and Owen, sixteen, stuck in an elevator together as the power goes out. Lucy's family lives on the 24th floor of this New York City building, and Owen's father recently started as the building manager and lives in the basement. Until now they hadn't exchanged any words, although Lucy had noticed him. 

After they are released from the elevator and discover the power outage is widespread, they stay together, going out for supplies and then up to the roof of the building, staring at the dark city and the stars. 

Soon after, Lucy's family moves to Edinburgh, keeping the apartment for occasional use, and Owen and his father start moving west. Even though their communication is sparse, the two can't stop thinking of each other.

This is a story of first love, of long-distance relationships, of family, and of growing up.

I liked both the main characters and most of the secondary characters here, particularly Owen's dad who is dealing with his own losses. A feel-good story.

No One You Know

Finished March 20

No One You Know by Michelle Richmond

This book starts with a woman meeting someone unexpectedly and then jumps back twenty years to when he first became a person she was aware of. The main character here, Ellie Enderlin, had an older sister Lila who was a math prodigy. Lila had given up her other love, riding her horse Dorothy, to focus on math. She was specifically focused on proving Goldbach's Conjecture. Both sisters are still living at home with their parents in San Francisco, and Ellie is a sophomore at college when Lila doesn't come home one night. Less than a week later, her body was found, with head damage near a hiking trail. 

The police enquiry didn't result in an arrest, and Ellie was able to confide all her feelings in a professor that she was close to, Andrew Thorpe. He showed sympathy when she asked for an incomplete in his course, and then encouraged her to talk to him about Lila. Ellie was unaware that Andrew had an agenda. But a few months later, after she'd confided quite a bit about her sister and her own life in regards to her, Andrew revealed that he was writing a book, a book about Lila. Despite Ellie requesting several times that he not do this, that he had betrayed her trust, he went ahead with the book, and in it he named who he thought had killed Lila. That man was never arrested, but his life was changed irrevocably anyway thanks to Thorpe's book. His marriage ended and he lost access to his son. He left his job and moved far away.

Lila had eventually read the book and accepted the version there, but after meeting the man Thorpe accused, she begins to question things. She meets with Thorpe and begins looking at other possibilities. This is a book about secrets, about noticing the small things, about trust and the loss of it, and about relationships in a larger way. 

Richmond is a great writer and she has a sense of the absurd that comes through in the plot here and in one quirky scene where she references one of her own earlier novels. I really enjoyed Ellie's foray into the facts of her sister's death, and how she came to know her more fully as a result. I also found Ellie's career interesting. She is a coffee taster and buyer for a small coffee company, and I enjoyed learning some of the detail of her job.

Poison

Finished July 1
Poison by John Lescroart

This novel is part of a series featuring the lawyer Dismas Hardy. It is the only one that I've read in the series. Hardy has sworn off murder cases after getting shot a year before in connection with a case. But when Abby Jarvis, a young woman that he defended years ago is arrested for the murder of her employer, he feels compelled to take her case.
We see a variety of points of view here, including Eric Waverly, a homicide inspector with the SFPD. Waverly also took a couple of bullets not that long ago, and he's back at work, but the pain is still causing him issues, and he's not dealing with it well on either a professional or a personal level.
As the book begins, Hardy is enjoying the season opening baseball game with his son, and Waverly is attending a reported homicide nearby. The man killed is a young Asian man, and it seems as if he knew his killer.
Abby hasn't been entirely honest with the police, and some of her actions definitely look questionable, but Hardy doesn't believe that she committed the crime she is accused of. He gets his usual investigator, Hunt, to look into other possible suspects, since the police seem to have stopped looking with Abby in jail.
Hardy has a lot of experience, both in the DA's office and as a criminal lawyer, and he has learned to go with his instincts on cases. His daughter is also a lawyer, and his son works for Facebook, and Hardy and his wife are close to both kids. As he learns of his son's connection to a murder case, he also warns him off getting involved.
There are connections all over here, and while I suspected some of them before they were exposed, the novel was still engrossing, and I enjoyed the plot.

The Party

Finished December 9
The Party by Robyn Harding

This book takes inside a family faced with a crisis. Jeff and Kim and their two teenage children live in a upscale San Francisco neighborhood. Jeff is a tech executive and Kim has been slowly getting back into the PR career she stepped away from when they had children. Their oldest child Hannah is turning sixteen, and they've given her permission to have a few friends over to celebrate. When things go horribly wrong and one of the girls is badly injured, we begin to learn what's under the perfect facade that others see.
From Jeff's flirtation with microdosing to Kim's flirtation with another man, the relationship between these two parents isn't as good as it seems. And Hannah is facing social choices at school as she tries to be accepted by the more popular crowd.
Everyone has secrets, secrets that are only gradually revealed as the facade unravels.
An interesting look at moral lapses, betrayals small and large, and the negative effects of peer pressure.

Maya's Notebook

Finished October 4
Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende, read by Maria Cabezas

This novel goes back and forth between Maya's experience on a remote island of Chile, and the events of her life that led up to this time. It is a coming-of-age novel, but also a novel of sadness.
Maya led a happy life with her grandparents in San Francisco until the death of her grandfather starts her down a road into self-destruction.
Because of it moving back and forth in time, you already know that she survives this period of her life, and her time on the island allows her the time and space to reflect on that time and to learn from it. From rebellion, to drugs, to sexual abuse, to living on the street, to being involved with criminals, Maya's life sunk gradually from the middle class home in which she began. As she reflects on the decisions that took her to those depths, she also begins to see how those decisions affected other people in her life, and how the decisions she takes now also have an affect. She sees how people care for each other in this community and in her life overall, and begins to make more adult decisions that take others' interests into account.
I didn't like Maya and didn't feel a connection with her at all, something which tends to affect my enjoyment of a book.But this novel is very well-written and tells an interesting story.

The Language of Flowers

Finished April 22
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Victoria Jones, the main character here, was abandoned as an infant and spent her young life in foster care and group homes. Her last foster home, when she was nine still haunts here, and it was there she learned the language of flowers.
Victoria has reached the age of 18 and is emancipated, but doesn't know how to begin her life on her own. She plants a small garden in a park and her talent is recognized by a local florist who offers her work. As Victoria grows more secure in her skills with flowers, she also finds herself drawn to the past, unsure if she can find peace with what she left behind.
This is a love story, a story of independence, a story of families, and of course a story of the language of flowers. I'd long been aware that flowers had meanings, but hadn't taken the time to investigate them. The author includes a listing of flower language at the end that is an interesting beginning. Diffenbaugh was inspired to write this novel by her own experiences as a foster mother.
As a person with two adopted siblings, I found that side of it interesting too.
Great read.

Mystery

Finished August 3
Jump by Tim Maleeny
This was a new author for me, and I really enjoyed it.
Set in San Francisco, the book begins following the death of a landlord, falling from the twentieth floor (top floor) of the apartment building he ran.
There is no shortage of suspects, but also a possibility of suicide exists. Very recently retired cop, Sam McGowan lives on the twentieth floor and his old partner asks him to do some unofficial detective work to see whether the police should make this a murder investigation.
Sam has always relied on his wife to make contacts with the neighbours, but she has recently died, and he must get to know them while also finding out about their actions that evening.
The various characters are original and highly entertaining, as is the plot. Sam comes out of the shell he has been in since his wife died and gets back into real life.
I particularly liked the way the author moved from chapter to chapter, using similar wording to link the actions from one scene to another.
A great mystery.

Mystery in Series

Finished June 27
Dante's Numbers by David Hewson
Nic Costa and his colleagues are back. Their team is responsible for the security of museum pieces on display for and relating to a new movie based on Dante's Inferno. The Carabinieri are responsible for the security of the people, such as actors. When the leading man is killed, and his death is broadcast across the world, the action is abruptly pulled back to San Francisco. Here Nic and his colleagues are once again relegated to a lesser role, but they keep finding clues to the murder and what is behind it.
With characters such as twin retired firefighters and a emotionally damaged leading actress, and ties to Hitchcock movies, there is a lot going on.
The setting of San Francisco, foreign to the Italian police, offers interesting possibilities and with Nic still recovering from his recent loss, we see more about his relationship with the rest of his team. A great read, as usual.