The Family Man

Finished January 26

The Family Man by Elinor Lipman

This novel is centered around Henry Archer, a lawyer recently retired, who reaches our to his ex-wife when he sees that her husband has died. He didn't expect her to latch onto him so avidly, and he didn't expect this to awaken suppressed feelings about losing access to the daughter he adopted when they married. As Henry finds his world changing, he must relinquish some of the control he is used to having, and open his mind to new experiences. 

This feel-good novel takes place in New York City with characters who find themselves in unexpected situations and often without the control they are used to having. Taking chances opens their horizons while also changing their paths in unexpected ways.

I liked Henry, and his new love, and found his stepdaughter Thalia an interesting character. The male characters who interact with Thalia are less defined but have some interesting behaviours as well. I would have liked to meet Celeste, Henry friend who died recently, too. 

You also get a sense of New York City, as in many of Lipman's novels. From the shopping to the club scene, the city comes to life here. 

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

Finished January 24

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch: A Novel by Rivka Galchen

This historical novel is based on real people and history. Johannes (Hans) Kepler, the astronomer, had long before left home and started his professional life by the beginning of this story. 

His mother Katharina Kepler is accused by a neighbour of being a witch. At first she thinks she should ignore it, and then she reconsiders as she understands that more people have heard of it, and she determines to speak out on her own behalf. She must have a legal guardian with her because as a woman she can't actually speak for herself. With her two sons, only one of whom is in the same town as her, struggling to make livings, she asks her neighbour, a man around her own age, to be that person. 

I found that relationship interesting as they'd had little to do with each other before then. We see them spending more time together and getting to know each better. 

It is a time of great uncertainty. The plague is still a threat and very soon the Thirty Years' War will begin. Hans makes a living in various ways, supporting his two children from his first marriage, and his second wife Susanna and young daughter Maruschl. Katerina's other son Christoph is a pewtersmith and lives near Katharina with his wife Gertrauta (Gertie) and daughter Agnes. He is worried about the effect her accusation will have on his business and ability to make a living. Her daughter Greta has married later than usual for those times, to a pastor, and soon into Katharina's ordeal they more to another town.

All three of Katharina's surviving children are supportive, and yet they or in Greta's case her husband, are worried about the stigma rubbing off onto them and their families. When she visits, she keeps her head low, and avoids interaction with friends and neighbours. At home, she becomes worried about what stories people are saying about her, and continues over many months to struggle to clear her name. 

Through the course of the book, we also learn about her past, her youth and her marriage, and why she now lives alone. We get a sense of the external world that she deals with, as well as her feelings and motivations. Katharina is a simple woman, who tends her garden, takes good care of her cow, and makes both food and remedies from plants she grows and gathers. She is illiterate, and requires someone, here Simon, to write her words for her. She is older and enjoys spending time with her young grandchildren, telling them stories, and playing with them. 

As this story unfolds, it becomes larger, representing the story of others falsely accused, and women's lower position in many eras. We see how it affects her community and her independence. 

A fascinating tale, well-researched. 

The Appeal

Finished January 18

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

This book has an unusual format with the whole story told in emails, documents and chat. Two early career lawyers are asked to look over the gathered conversation from a case to see what conclusions they make about who may be the murderer in the case.

They are given no background information at all, and it seems like the case hasn't come to their attention in any other way, such as through the news, as they appear to have no knowledge of it at all.

The book mostly consists of email between the various players in the small community, people who are linked together through their involvement with a local theatre group and the family that runs it. 

One of the main players is a young nurse, who is a bit of an outsider, tolerated, but not liked, and who comes across as quite needy. The family who runs the theatre group consists of a local couple, their two adult children, the children's spouses, and their very young granddaughter. 

There is also another young couple, both nurses, who have recently come back to England after working for several years in Africa. We don't have access to their emails, but can see some that are sent to them by the others. 

Every so often the two lawyers chat about what they're reading in the case notes, and as the book nears its close, they begin to draw conclusions and make arguments for their reasoning, interacting with the older lawyer who has assigned them this task. 

It is an interesting structure, and an interesting case, and because of the limited glimpse you get into people's lives, you aren't sure how much to trust any of them. 

Die For You

Finished January 15

Die For You by Lisa Unger

This is a fast-moving suspense novel that I had trouble putting down. 

Isabel has been married to Marcus for a few years, after he showed up at a bookstore where she was doing an author reading. Before that, she'd thought that a deep and lasting relationship like that of her sister's was something that would never be hers.

There have been a couple of blips in their marriage, but things are going well as the novel begins. Marcus leaves for work one morning, prepping for an important meeting, and doesn't come home. The following day, when Isabel goes to his office in search of answers, there is a dramatic raid there and she is left with even more questions.

When the police begin to dig into her husband's past and find that he wasn't who she thought he was, she remains determined to get to the bottom of things, and find the real answers as to why he married her and where he has gone. 

Isabel is a writer of novels herself and her mind works in problem-solving ways on a regular basis as she creates her plots. She is good at piecing together bits and pieces to make a story, and she begins to do that with her husband. She has some bits from her own experiences with him, and more from others who interacted with him, and as she researches she finds more disparate pieces that bring her to follow a faint trail back to his native Czech Republic. 

I loved Isabel as a woman who has been taken advantage of and won't give up in her search for answers. She has been underestimated by more than just her husband, and she faces the unknown with facts. 

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. 

Cold to the Touch

Finished January 10

Cold to the Touch by Frances Fyfield

Fyfield is one of the queens of the psychological suspense novel and this one is no exception. The central character here is Sarah Fortune , a woman who has made a career out of helping men overcome a variety of issues and build relationships. This is the sixth book in the series featuring Sarah. Here she has a younger friend, Jessica, who she encounters one early morning in London and takes back to her flat. She tries to find out what is going on with Jessica, discovering only that Jessica had gone to the Smithfield meat market in hopes of meeting a man she has strong feelings for and ended up making a fool of herself. Jessica is a very spontaneous, emotional young woman, and when Sarah makes an offhand remark about wanting to leave London for a cottage near the sea, Jessica immediately seizes upon it, and arranges for Sarah to rent a house that Jessica's mother owns in the small village of Pennyvale, where Jessica grew up.

As Sarah enjoys the village, spending time walking through the countryside, watching the people, and the sea, she stays in touch with Jessica, and tries to find out why Jessica feels she can't come home, and also tries to advise Jessica about this mysterious man she can't seem to get over. Sarah hasn't yet engaged directly with Jessica's mother who seems to be a sad figure, unhappy and yet somehow still involved in many of the village goings on. 

When Jessica tells Sarah that she will come visit, and never arrives, Sarah must go back to London, looking for the clues for Jessica's fate, and trying to find her mystery man. 

Sarah is a very interesting character, a woman who is open-minded, intelligent, and kind. She seems to have good relationships with the men she's been involved with previously, and is attractive to men in general. She has good instincts, and pays attention to details. She is a good friend and cares about people. 

And yet she can also be ruthless when needed, and calculating. 

I really enjoyed both the characters here (Andrew the local vicar, and Jeremy the butcher's helper in particular in addition to Sarah) and found the plot quite intriguing. A great read. 

Between a Book and a Hard Place

Finished January 5

Between a Book and a Hard Place by Denise Swanson

This is part of a series of books set in the small town of Shadow Bend, Missouri. The main character, Devereaux (Dev) Sinclair runs the local five-and-dime store, which also has a soda fountain. She moved back to town for family reasons leaving a career in the investment industry. When Dev was sixteen, her father Kern went to jail (for a crime he didn't commit) and her mother Yvette left town, dropping Dev at her paternal grandmother' Birdies house as she left. 

Now Dev's dad works at her store and both of them live with Birdie. Dev has a few close friends: Poppy who runs a local nightclub called Gossip Club, and who is estranged from her own father, the local police chief; Ronni, who owns the local bed and breakfast; and Boone, who is on the town council and hopes to find funding to reopen the local library.

Dev also has a couple of boyfriends, and is struggling to choose between them. One is Noah, a local doctor who was her high school boyfriend, but who dumped her when they both went off to college. The other is Jake, a former US-marshall, who now lives on a neighbouring farm, helping out his aging uncle. 

Now Yvette is back in town with her latest husband Jett, it looks like the local library will be getting funding, and a strange professor claims to see lights from UFOs in the local area. But when Jett turns up dead, Dev must not only protect her family by finding out who the killer was, but also take on other local issues. 

A light read with a lot of side plots that will likely lead to more possibilities for future books in the series. 

The Apothecary's Curse

Finished January 3

The Apothecary's Curse by Barbara Barnett

This story has mystery, pain and suffering, romance, and friendship. Gaelan Erceldoune is an apothecary in Victoria London, working in Smithfield and helping the poor as best he can. He has a dedicated clientele who depend on him. But he is threatened by a man who controls much of the crime going on in his neighbourhood, and has isolated himself lately from his colleagues after the death of his wife and child. When a former acquaintance, Simon Bell, comes to him in desperation for a remedy for his wife's illness, he gives in and supplies a medication he has never created before. When it doesn't work as expected, Simon takes the remainder of the flask, and finds himself changed in an unexpected way.

When his world is destroyed shortly thereafter, and he becomes an object of experimentation in Bedlam, he nearly loses his mind. When Simon eventually learns of Gaelan's situation, he saves him, taking him into his own home, and requests a solution to the problem he himself now finds himself in. 

Revealing his own secrets, Gaelan and Simon join together to search for the book that Gaelan has been entrusted with by his father. 

By 2016, the two are still searching, and Simon follows every clue he can, growing ever more desperate. When Gaelan's actions put him in danger of revealing his secret to the world, he finds himself helped by a woman he never expected.

This is a story of cruelty, greed, and man's inhumanity to each other. But there are pockets of hope, of selflessness, and of true caring. It is a story of magic, but one less unbelievable than most. 

Gaelan is a man who loves strongly, and who cares not only about those close to him, but for all humanity, and his sufferings and resulting PTSD haunt him throughout his life. 

I found myself drawn into this book, not wanting to put it down, hoping that the characters would find some kind of happiness. 

Hidden

Finished January 3

Hidden by Fern Michaels

This is the first book I've read by Fern Michaels, and I was surprised how badly written it was. She is an established author with a large fan base, which led me to suppose that she was a good writer. I plan to read at least one of her earlier books to try her again to see if this is an outlier for her, but if it isn't, I certainly won't be recommending her to readers. 

This book follows a few characters: brother and sister Cullen and Luna who have broken away from parental expectations to do what they want, for him furniture restoration, for her a cafe and psychic readings. There is a lot of backstory for her, less for him. She met a police officer several years ago when a small child was lost and she helped find her, and developed a crush on him, and has worked with him a few times since, but the relationship never developed on a personal level. This part just seemed odd.With such a strong reaction from her, why did she do nothing to show her feelings. She talks much younger than she is and a lot of the conversations in the book are very stilted. 

There are a wealthy couple, stereotypically evil, but not very smart, who are looking for something that they think may be hidden in a piece of furniture they disposed of. Their actions are not well planned, and they seem to be very flat characters. They hire a detective to search for a woman, and he appears for a while and then is dropped from the plot. 

The woman they are searching for appears and she seems more normal, but still not well-developed. As the storylines come together at the end, a lot of things happen without being documented in the book and it is wrapped up very quickly, especially given all the description and backstory earlier.

Not a winner. This is supposed to be the first book in a new series. Hopefully an editor gets involved before the next one. The cover art seems to have no connection to the plot either.

Sign-Up for 2022 What's In a Name Reading Challenge

I've done this challenge a few times. It is hosted here. 

This challenge has six prompts and you have to read a book to match each to complete it. For 2022, the prompts are: 

* Compound word

* Speed

* Person and their description

* Mythical being

* Season

* Colour