Dr. Jennifer White, a 64-year-old orthopedic physician suffering from dementia is the prime suspect in the murder of her best friend, Amanda. Three of Amanda’s fingers have been surgically removed and Jennifer specialized in working with joints in the hands. Jennifer tries to make sense of what is happening but her dementia has progressed to the point that she cannot always identify faces , remember names or even care for her own basic daily functions. Jennifer’s companion keeps a notebook detailing daily activity, her children come to see her trying to find out what happened and the police keep taking her back for interrogation. Using short sentences and paragraphs, the author lets us experience Jennifer’s fragmented and disjointed thinking as she moves back and forth in her mind trying to remember her past and her friendship with the dead woman. This movement causes us to experience the painfully confusing life of a person losing her life to Alzheimers while giving the necessary clues (as well as some red herrings) to keep us wanting to learn what happened. Yet, this is so much more than a "who done it." At the end, I felt drained yet satisfied. This is a superbly written mystery.

McLain’s novel took me back to the Hemingway stories and novels I have read as well as calling up much of what I once knew about the expatriates following WW1, of whom Hemingway was a member. McLain’s book does an excellent job of setting the scene first in the US and later in Europe of the wild life led by many young people who bought into living a Bohemian life with sex and seemingly endless drinking as well as using drugs. McLain lets Hadley tell of her infatuation with the charismatic writer (eight years younger than she is), their decision to marry and move to Paris. Readers realize early that this is not a relationship that can last. The best parts of the book are the descriptions of Paris which seems almost like a small town where the artists and writers, including Gertrude Stein, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and others who form a united if unstable group of friends, as well as the descriptions of the bull fighting in Spain.

I really felt I was living in this unstable world and sympathized with Hadley as she watched her marriage fall apart while Ernest became more and more concerned with his own reputation and with fitting into a world that she could not accept. If for no other reason, the novel is worth reading for taking us back to a time many of us know little about.

Louise Penny’s Three Pines novels just keep getting better. "Bury the Dead" takes readers into a darker world than any of the five earlier novels in this series while keeping many of the same quirky characters and adding some delightful new ones. But this is Chief Inspector Gamache’s novel. Gamache must come to terms with making a wrong decision that costs the life of one of his agents. Set in Quebec City during a cold Canadian winter that mirrors the coldness Gamache feels in his soul, Penny goes beyond a well-written cozy mystery to a novel that deals with how we must face the reality of our weaknesses and learn to accept them along with our successes and our strengths.

Penny’s Gamache will remind readers of Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti. Like Leon’s novels, Penny’s depend on well-crafted characters and intricate plots rather than on violence and tough macho detectives. For such readers, "Bury Your Dead" will prove a most satisfying read.

A beautiful young girl growing up with little attention from her loving but distant parents, Contessa Carolina Fantoni is allowed to do what she wants until they discover that she spends most of her days with Turri, her married neighbor who fills her mind with his impractical but fascinating and often beautiful experiments. When Turri, 10 years her senior, tells the 17-year-old Carolina that he is in love with her, his words ring "in her mind like an alarm bell."

At 18 Carolina marries Pietro, the most eligible suitor in her neighborhood, and is set to live a life of luxury. Unfortunately she is going blind but neither Pietro nor her parents believe her until it happens. Left alone with only the handsome but unimaginative Pietro and a servant to read to her, Carolina lives in her dreams until she stumbles her way to the lake where she had spent her childhood. There she meets Turri who creates a special "writing machine" for her so they can communicate. Perhaps his only practical invention, this machine will eventually determine the outcome of their lives.

This beautifully realized story, takes readers into a world that is part fairy tale and part fantasy yet still grounded in reality. Readers see the world as Carolina sees it, experiencing her gradually diminished sight and her attempts to live in a dark world.

Lovers of romance will enjoy Vanora Bennett’s story of Catherine de Valois, youngest daughter of France’s King Charles VI and Owain Tudor, a member of Henry V’s English entourage. More than just a love story, the novel brings readers into a time when one misstep could end in death, imprisonment or, especially for women, being used as a pawn by men.