The Secret of Snow

Finished December 14

The Secret of Snow by Viola Shipman

Sonny Dunes is an award-winning, dedicated meteorologist working at a television channel in Palm Springs, California. Unexpectedly, the son of the owner, who manages the station replaces her with an AI avatar, and she, after an afternoon of drinks with a former co-worker, takes out her anger on air. 

As she searches for a new job, she finds that the only station offering her a position is in her Michigan hometown. The station news manager is a college classmate that she rebuffed as a friend.  

Sonny finds that she has been hired to bring the station higher in the local ratings, and she decides to accept her situation and work hard at her local 'on location' assignments all designed to feature her outdoors and enjoying winter activities. 

Sonny has moved back in with her widowed mother, a hospice nurse, and soon finds that her return to her hometown means that she also has to face her past, something that she's been running from for her entire adult life. The untimely death of her little sister, who absolutely loved winter, is something that she never fully dealt with emotionally, and now she can't avoid the memories.

Along with this, someone begins a sneaky campaign to frame her as a cold, uncaring person, editing video and posting it online. 

Sonny would like to move forward, and heal, for her mother as well as herself, but she finds herself cracking under the pressure. 

This is a fast-moving plot with lots of interesting characters, and a small-town setting that evokes community. Sonny is a woman who has built a life distancing herself from her trauma, and she shows herself to be only too human in the circumstances. 

My copy of this novel also included a novella entitled "Christmas in Tinsel Tree Village," also set in Michigan around a woman who fled a different sadness and creating a career in marketing, specializing in Christmas window displays and bottlebrush trees. 

Prime Time Romance

Finished June 13

Prime Time Romance by Kate Robb

The second novel from this author is just as engrossing as her first. Brynn is finally getting over the sudden end of her marriage, one she didn't see coming. She is managing the mortgage on her Toronto condo by getting a roommate. Josh works as a bartender at a popular bar and is dealing with his own grief at his failure to keep his dad's bar going after his death a few years ago. With their different work schedules, Josh and Brynn don't actually see each other that often. Brynn's been bingeing on her favourite television series from her teenager years, Carson's Cove, which centered on a group of teenagers on a small New England island town of the same name. One theme of the show was the love of two of the teens, who never expressed their feelings for each other, although several seasons ended in cliffhanger moments. When the series was suddenly cancelled after one of these scenes as Spencer goes off to college and Sloan travels to Paris, fans were left hanging. Brynn just wants a happy ending, for the characters as well as herself. 

The book opens as Brynn is out with some friends, more acquaintances really, she uses her familiarity with the bar Josh works at to get the group in, but soon finds herself wishing she was back home in front of the television. When Josh sees her in need of a way home, he ends his shift early and accompanies her home and watches a couple episodes of the show with her. Just as they are both about to call it a day, a delivery person arrives with a birthday cake, which they both have a piece of. 

When they awake, they find themselves in the fictional Carson's Cove, with Brynn living as an older Sloan, back in town for a while. Josh finds himself cast as Fletcher, a guy who lives above his aunt's bar, and has a reputation for unreliability and a bad boy. 

With Spencer back in town as well, things seem to be set up for the happy ending Brynn has been dreaming of, but is that really the best outcome for the characters. 

I liked how Robb teased a bit with the predictable happy ending, but gave the characters more depth, and introduced a new viewpoint into the nature the main as well as the secondary characters, both friends and rivals. 

This had me thinking about the new takes on some shows and movies from the past that reveal some problematic situations and personalities as we look back on them from our, hopefully, more enlightened present. 

I also liked the inclusion of real Canadian places, like Orillia into the plotline. 

Definitely a page turner for me. 

Lessons in Chemistry

Finished May 28

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

I started this book months ago but kept setting it aside as it is so good I didn't want it to end. The ending is satisfying though, so I feel good about finishing it now. The novel takes place in the early 1960s in small town southern California, but the story reaches back further. While it starts with an incident in 1961 that has Elizabeth meeting Walter Pine and thus setting off a new career in television for her, we quickly jump back ten years earlier when Elizabeth Zott, a chemist at Hastings Research Institute met Calvin Evans, one of the head research chemists there. 

Seeing how the two met gives an insight into how chemistry both in the scientific sense and in the sense of human attraction is at play here. Elizabeth is a feminist because she's had to be to get as far as she has, dealing with multiple barriers along the way. 

We see her dysfunctional childhood, the loneliness of her life, and her drive for science. As we get to know Calvin, we find he has also had a difficult childhood and has had to make his own way through similar efforts to those of Elizabeth. However, because he is a man, one he proved his intelligence, it all became much easier. 

As they grow closer, we see how in some ways he makes things easier for Elizabeth, supporting her research, ensuring she has the supplies she needs, and in others making things harder because now she has been labelled as a woman who is sleeping her way to job success. 

When things go wrong and Elizabeth is left to fend for herself as a single mother and she struggles to support herself, her daughter Amelia, and their dog Six-Thirty. Six-Thirty had found Elizabeth and claimed her and they bonded quickly. 

There is so much in this book: love and loss; the fight for sexual equality, the subtle acts that work away at a person just trying to live their life. I loved this book so much. 

Late Checkout

Finished April 11

Late Checkout by Carol J. Perry

This mystery is the ninth in a series is set in Salem, Massachusetts, and this particular book is set in late October, early November. The main character, Lee Barrett, is a field reporter for the local television station, WICH-TV, but she's been downgraded to part-time temporarily while the station owner's nephew works at the station as a first step in his TV news career. 

Lee lives in an upstairs apartment in the home of her aunt Ibby, the director of the local library. She was widowed a few years ago after her NASCAR racing husband died. She is now going out with a local police detective, Pete Mondello. She and her aunt share their home with a very special cat O'Ryan who possesses some clairvoyant abilities. Lee herself also has some psychic abilities and sometimes has visions, usually ones that appear to her in a reflective surface such as a mirror. 

The station is celebrating its seventieth birthday soon, and Lee is put on the job of research for the event, and research is something she loves, and often gets her aunt involved in too. Since Lee has some time on her hands, she also decides to volunteer at the library, but on her first shift she finds a dead body and gets involved in a case that may threaten her personally. 

The scene of death is reminiscent of the death scene of one of the station's old sports announcers, and also is similar to a recent break-in at someone's home. As Lee tries to figure out if the death's are linked and whether the different figures are related to other people at the station now or in the past, she finds herself with research that overlaps the work she is doing for the station's event, as well as introducing her to the world of sports collectibles.

We get to meet many of the station's other personalities, from the receptionist to the camera crew, as well as past personalities. Lee's visions are interesting because she doesn't know whether they are of the past or the future until she can figure them out. I would definitely read more of this series. 

Another Thing to Fall

Finished June 23

Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman

This is the tenth book in the series featuring Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan. I've read one of the earlier books in the series as well. 

Here Tess unknowingly rows into the set of a television pilot being filmed in the city, and finds herself being asked to do security for the production company, specifically for the female lead Selene Waites. Recently a local man was found dead in his home surrounded by photos of the actor. She is reluctant, but agrees if they also find a position for Tess' boyfriend Crow's ward Lloyd Jupiter. Crow has been trying to get Lloyd to find a job, but he hasn't lasted at anything and he is better occupied than not. 

Tess finds that Selene isn't as ditzy as she makes herself out to be, and when she is outfoxed by the actor, she brings in her best friend Whitney so that they can cover her for all hours. 

During this time however, someone has been found murdered at the production company offices, and Tess finds her interest sparked. As she begins to dig into the background of the people in the company, she finds a lot more than meets the eye. 

This introduced me to some industry lingo and processes I didn't know and has an interesting plotline. 

Tess is a character I like, as is Whitney. A fast and engrossing read. 

Rabbit Ears

Finished January 12

Rabbit Ears: TV Poems edited by Joel Allegretti

This is a book that has been on my shelf for a while, long before I stopped really watching television. But I did watch my share of television previously and recognize the allusions to shows, commercials and other television-related subjects. 

The editor conceived the idea of this anthology after writing a couple of television themed poems himself, and gathered, sifted, and chose the poems included here.

It is organized roughly by subject into "channels" with commercial breaks between them. A fun way to structure the anthology. 

The poems are about TV shows from the Munsters to Dick van Dyke, cartoons to reality television, from Bette Davis to the Mod Squad, Lawrence Welk to the X-Files. There is something here for everyone. 

The styles of poetry vary widely as well, and the tones vary from serious to slyly humorous. 

A fun and unique collection.