THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride
Heartwarming and yet filled with the frailties of humans is my one sentence comment on this book. HEAVEN AND EARTH tells the story of the town of Pottstown, Pennsylvania in the 1920’s and the disparate group of people who live there. The Jews and the Colored live on the hillside above the town, the “arrived on the Mayflower” whites live at the bottom of the hill and the “new” immigrants live somewhere in the middle. Do they get along? Well, maybe.

Chona, the Jewish woman who has always lived in Pottstown and runs the grocery store is a good (and beautiful) woman. She lives among and is friends with the Colored folk who live about her on the hill. She feeds everyone whether or not they can pay. Her husband is the successful owner of the TWO local live music theaters that cater to both Colored and white folk. The local doctor is enamored of Chona and is NOT a good doctor although he is the only doctor.

In 1972, long after Chona, her husband and Doc are gone, a skeleton is found in an abandoned well. Who is at the bottom of the well and why? And that, friends, is the plot of the story.

Excellent writing, characters that leap off the page and a plot that will keep you guessing are the hallmark of this author. McBride has a clear understanding of his characters and the interactions between them. The intricacies of the plot will keep your attention and stay with you long after you have finished the book. Pay careful attention as the “plot thickens” in the last fourth of the book. (If you are triggered by the use of “Colored” or “Negro” you might want to skip this book. Please don’t!)

5 of 5 stars

WE SOLVE MURDERS by Richard Osman

Osman has written another intelligent murder mystery peopled with fully drawn characters, an intricate plot, and a sense of humor. He does spend a fair amount of time establishing his characters, but the intelligence of the resulting plot and writing makes the time spent worthwhile. This time his series is peopled by a private detective (Amy Wheeler) protecting a world famous author (Rosie) who happens to be a scheming curmudgeon, and Amy’s father-in-law, Steve, a blissfully retired police detective.
When bodies (several) and money (lots of money) show up, the question becomes who is Francois Loubert and why does he want Amy dead? Hijinks abound along with murder, mysterious characters, round the world plane rides, and danger in plenty as our intrepid PI and her erstwhile protectee, now her companion is sleuthing, and her reluctant father-in-law attempt to answer those questions and, more importantly, stay alive.

After Osman’s successful run with the Thursday Murder Club books, he entertains us with a new set of engaging characters and engrossing story lines. I’m looking forward to further adventures with Amy, Rosie and Steve. This series is lots of fun and lots of intrigue. Enjoy!

5 stars and well worth your time.

FALLING by T J Newman

After you suspend logic, this thriller delivers thrills a minute and then some. The premise is simple. The bad guys have kidnapped a pilot’s family and want hm to crash his plane or they will kill his family. What follows is a relentless thrill ride as we travel along with the crew and innocent passengers. How can our brave pilot save both his family AND his plane. And, of course, why do the bad guys want him to crash the plane anyway.

The crew and bad guys are pretty standard characters. Jo, the head flight attendant, is actually a more well drawn character than the pilot. It is obvious that the writer is extremely familiar with planes, the security systems on board them, and the flight attendants whose real job is to keep the passengers safe not serve them coffee.
You WILL get drawn into the intricacies of the plot. You WILL stay up late reading to discover how this turns out. A good debut for a first-time author (and former flight attendant) who puts her knowledge of flight systems to good use.

4 stars for a thrilling ride.

Insidious and evil. Dark and depressing. Murder or accident? And yet I HAD to keep reading. The writing was beautifully done, keeping ones desire to know and understand at a high pitch. Three women, one evil, one good, and one …also evil?...also good?….which is it? Who is doing the manipulating and who is being manipulated?
Interspersing the darkness are lovely descriptions of the landscape of Australia. The mechanics of rope climbing become a part of the story. The characters and situations are believable.
There were many times I was ready to put this book down and not pick it up again. But the depth of the writing kept me reading. It is difficult to recommend the book because there is so much of the book that is triggering. I could only recommend it to a limited number of people and I would have to know them and their reading habits well to offer this book to them. There is little light or joyous to be gotten from reading FALLING GIRL. I would not use this book in a book group because of too many triggers and no real resolution.

4 stars for the writing, 2 stars for the darkness of the story

I have given BAD ANIMALS a couple days to "sit with me" before writing this review. I'm still not sure how I feel about the book. It was well written, the story was mostly engaging; but I didn't like any of the main characters. I can't decide if Maeve was just a total innocent caught up in circumstances beyond her control or she was a jaded and cynical psychopath who attempted to destroy a child. Or maybe the child was the psychopath who attempted to destroy the adult Maeve. I am certain Harrison was a cynical "user" of people for his own enjoyment and financial gain. Poor Jack was caught in the middle of Harrison and Maeve's shenanigan's and the ultimate loser. The other librarians were simply there for the author's ability to tell the story.
So, would I recommend this book to another reader? Maybe? Maybe not? Would I have finished the book if I wasn't writing a review? NO, I would have given it maybe 100 pages instead of my usual 50 before dropping it, but I wouldn't have finished it. But maybe would I have, if only to find out what ultimately happened to Libby, the only character I cared about.
So, 4 stars for writing. 2 stars for story.
3 stars for the total book.

I live in Chicago and for several years drove past the Robert Taylor Homes every day on my way to work and back to my home on the North Side. Those Homes were a source of fear, and yet also hope for both the people who lived there and the people who just drove by. Wolfe gathers those fears and hope and writes a story of hope, desperation, resilience, fear and joy.
FeFe is a girl on the cusp of womanhood with a protective mother and a brother who loves her and their mother, but is caught up in the gangs, drugs, violence and sex that is rampant in the Taylor homes. FeFe’s friends include girls who will “make it out” and some who will be caught by the violence and despair. FeFe is fortunate to have a teacher willing to extend herself for her students, a mother who teaches her self-respect and respect and concern for others.
You NEED to read this book. When you do, you may feel the guilt of privilege. Remember that every child deserves the privilege of hope, respect and love.

"Girls are nothing more than wives for other people's sons." And so begins the story of Hai, her mother and her sisters. When the communist revolution comes to their area, the girls and their mom are left behind by their wealthy landowning family with only a vague promise to return for them.
Enemies of the communists because of the family's wealth and importance, the girls and their mother are evicted with no money or food as enemies of the people. Hai, the eldest daughter not yet a teen, narrates this compelling, barely fictionalized account of the journey by foot through China toward Taiwan. The girls come alive on the pages as their harrowing tale is told.
Chung relates the story of her grandmother with deftness and empathy. Although filled with danger, poverty, and continuing disasters, the story offers hope, resilience, love and the power of faith and kindness. Readers will learn much about the Communist takeover of China and the ravages war brings to a peasant population. Book groups will have many topics for discussion from foot binding to the importance of education. I highly recommend this book.

I very much disliked this book. It was too long by at least 100 pages. It was too disjointed as time, place, and characters jumped from page to page, even paragraph to paragraph with not even a line break to give the reader a clue to the jump. There was too much incomprehensible talk among the characters about Haitian politics and too many untranslated French words, phrases and sentences for this German speaking American. I knew little about Haitian politics before I read this book and I am still in the dark. I often felt I needed to stop reading and consult Wikipedia’s version of Haitian history.

Parts of the book were interesting and well written. One blurb writer called this book “a fast, riveting read. A gripping thriller…” he must have read a different book. This book was a struggle to get through the first hundred pages before the characters and plot started to become clear. I would have enjoyed a 300 page book of Matt and Alix’s treasure hunting adventures much more.
I found Audrey/Shelly simply too confusing to like or dislike or to follow her part in the story. Matt had an interesting ethical dilemma. Alix apparently had no problems in the ethical field at all. His sister chose and was in that way my favorite character.

4 stars for the writing: 3 stars for the plot and length.

After a slow start, due primarily to the detailed, short and apparently unconnected vignettes, I got into the rhythm of this detailed tale of one family persecuted for beliefs and forced to leave their homeland for America. John, the main character, starves with his mother for her religious beliefs when she is jailed. Although soon released, John is forever scarred by this episode.
John, continues to America where he continues to grow successful gardens (beautiful writing here) meet various people, including Abraham Lincoln, and reconnects with Mary, a former neighbor, in the enduring and endearing love story.
Although a bit too long (where have all the editors gone?) this is a well written, engaging story with real events and persons seamlessly woven in. Well worth the time spent wading through the initial disconnectedness to a classic tale of family, endurance, pride, hard work, serendipity and love.
4 ½ stars

The turmoil in China from 1938 to 1998 is the background for this family tale. Meilin, a young wife and mother, loses her husband to the Japanese invasion and then must flee with her 4 year-old son when the marauding Japanese attack her family’s village. The book continues with mother and son as World War Two, the communist uprising, the Nationalist movement and other calamities affect them. Renshu, the son, quickly becomes the focal character in this richly descriptive and harrowing tale.
Fu’s character study of Renshu as he progresses through life, first in China and then the United States, education, then marriage and a family of his own, makes the book believable and engrossing. A scroll depicting various folk tales is the link for each episode in his life.
After a slow start the book is compelling reading. The scholarship is impeccable. China comes alive as Renshu and his mother contend with the vicissitudes of life in a country racked by turmoil.
4 of 5 stars

I was prepared to dismiss this book as entirely ridiculous after my self-appointed requirement of 75 pages; however, what I discovered was a perfectly delightful, well written and tender character study.
The story concerns a 70-year-old woman stuck in grief for a teenaged son lost to an early death, a 30-year-old man-child stuck in anger at a mother who abandoned him at age 9 and an aging octopus stuck in a too small “prison” longing for the vast ocean he can hear outside the aquarium. One supporting character I enjoyed was the busybody owner of the grocery store who inserts himself into everyone else’s business.
To tell you more would spoil this novel. Read it for yourself and be delighted. I hope the author writes another tale for us to enjoy.
5 of 5 stars for a surprisingly good novel with an unusual collection of characters and a first-time author.

This two-pronged story tells of the young vinedresser’s daughter, Roseanne, who is orphaned and then turned into a maid/servant by her supposed guardians. The inter twining story tells of Roseanne’s “aunt” who has shown her great kindness and love, but is far away in Europe facing her own devils when Roseanne’s parents die.
These two stories are dependent on each other as they tell of man’s inhumanity to man and also great love and resilience. Meissner is able to show both good and characters in all their faults, but also their humanity. She has done her research on vine dressing, wine making and on Europe in the years preceding and during Hitler’s rise. Meissners’ great ability to empathize with her characters and cause them to grow and change in the course of the story makes the novel radiant with life.
Book groups will have many topics to discuss – meaning of family, child abuse, discrimination, grief, adoption, exploitation of minors, mental health, abusive laws, sterilizations, love, empathy and more.

I had a hard time putting this book down. I needed to find out what happened to Victor, his family and his friends in the 1950’s. Chin-Tanner made them real people and I was invested in them from the first pages of this coming-of-age novel. Victor, a 15-year-old Chinese immigrant boy living with his father, brother and his father’s live-in girlfriend in New York City, discovers he has Hanson’s Disease (leprosy, a slur) and must be confined to the National Hospital in Carville, Louisiana until he is cured. At Carville, for the first time, Victor is able to make his own friends and decisions and discovers he has talents and capabilities he was unable to foster in the confines of his brother’s shadow.
As an educator I was able to visit Carville in the late 1960’s. Chin-Tanner got the atmosphere, fear and hope of the place exactly right. She wrote expressively of being a teenager in a state of anxiety and dread with great empathy and reality. The alternate plot of the family left behind in New York was equally fascinating. The oppressive climate of hot, humid Louisiana in the summer was clear.
Altogether this is a great book well worth your time. You will learn a lot about Hanson’s Disease and Carville, teenagers and their path to adulthood. KING OF THE ARMADILLOS is full of love, despair, hope, friendship, betrayal, passion, talent, family, and much more. Book groups will find a plethora of topics to discuss.

The plot to kill the three leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union at the Tehran Conference (World War II) was led by an untrained, unskilled and abandoned “spy” who had been sent to Tehran very early in the war. His only orders were to gather information and set up a “team” of Nazi sympathizers who might be called upon later. Then Russia entered the war on the Allied side and Franz Mayr was simply abandoned by his Nazi controllers until late in the war when Mayr was able to reestablish contact with the Nazi regime.

The Nazi Conspiracy was part history and part spy thriller. I discovered that Roosevelt and Stalin tried to cut Churchill out of one conference and Churchill and Roosevelt tried to keep Stalin out of another! Churchill was not enthusiastic about D-Day and Stalin wanted it to happen much earlier in the war. Meltzer was able to convey the differing personalities and needs of the three world leaders and a spy story along with a vast trove of back story in an entertaining and truthful way.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The NAZI CONSPIRACY. I would recommend it to anyone interested in history or a thrilling spy story. Although Meltzer conveyed a vast amount of information, the book never lost my interest and seemed to follow a clear path to its conclusion.

This a mesmerizing story of love, war, murder, betrayal, politics, desire, despair, forgiveness and revenge. A noble Italian family is devastated by events during World War II. Their beloved villa, surrounded by centuries old olive and grape orchards, and a depository of Etruscan artifacts, becomes a meeting place for treasure seeking Germans. At the same time a partisan group seeks refuge in the Etruscan burial vaults. Ten years later someone begins murdering the remaining Rosatis one by one.

Bahjalian is a master of character, place and plot. They come together in this thrilling detective tale to surround the reader with Italy in the waning days of the war, a family trying without success to maintain their traditions and young people coming of age in a time of great turmoil.
Book Groups will find a wealth of material for discussion.

IRON CURTAIN is a delight to read. It has humor, pathos, tension, fear, love, loyalty, tragedy, responsibility, faithfulness and patriotism. Milena and Jason, as well as all the supporting characters, are well drawn, and accurate. The descriptions of the two countries reflect the notions of how each country sees itself and the other. The book covers the differences between perception and reality, especially as it relates to how communist countries view the west and vice versa.
My daughter lived for several years in a former Soviet Republic. I completely understand Milena's decisions. The notion of freedom has varying degrees of reality: freedom from want, from decision making, to choose, to make mistakes, and others. Where and what is "home" is also a point that is covered well by this book.
One of my favorite characters was Clarissa. She had depths of character that slowly emerged as the book progressed.
IRON CURTAIN would make a great book for discussion groups. I highly recommend it, even with its slow start.
5 of 5 stars

I SO wanted to like this book. The premise of the story, a racially blended family caught in the prejudice and cruelty of the Immorality Act in South Africa, is fascinating. Abram, a White, is condemned by the beloved children born to him and his Native (Black) wife, Alisa. What to do? What to do? If he stays, he will have his property confiscated, and his children taken away. If he goes, he leaves behind the work of generations on his estate and he himself and his family will become stateless. His wife makes a terrible choice and that is where the tale begins.
Unfortunately, the writing style made me constantly feel as though I had missed a paragraph, or page, or even chapter, of the plot. I was constantly trying to put inferences and comments together to make sense of the story. It was very frustrating to try to follow the story line when I felt I was missing vital information.
I quite enjoyed the "tales" of the Native people imbedded in the story. The descriptions of the land and people were delightful, making the reader a part of Africa. All in all, worth my time, but very frustrating. I would not recommend this title to my book group.

This is a fun romp through assassinations – although these are assassins with scruples – they only kill those who deserve to die to make the world a better place. That is-- until someone puts a hit on them!
Four women assassins who have spent their whole lives working for “the good of humanity” have reached retirement age only to discover they themselves have been targeted. Will they become victims or will their “advanced age and unique skills” actually work to their advantage? This mystery is almost a cozy with a bit of humor thrown in. The flashbacks are interesting and give a portrait of each woman. The situations are believable – sort of. Although a bit long (nearly 350 pages) it held my interest. The plot is detailed and intricate. Thoroughly enjoyable.
5 of 5 stars

I thought this was going to be an Indian dalit makes good in the tech world, creates a new world order that turns on him and he responds with more techie intrigue book.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a wide ranging but superficial family drama with a vast cast of characters that jumped from past to present to near past to middle past and back to present with jarring regularity. Oh, yes, there is some techie stuff thrown in but it is an obvious afterthought to the family drama.

The techie part was interesting. Can you turn your mind into a computer and then pass it on to another? What an intriguing idea. I wish more of the book revolved around this idea. I was disappointed.

There were too many characters, many of whom make only brief appearances before disappearing. The time jumps occurred without warning. The characters, even King and his daughter, Athena, were not fully fleshed out. The story of how a dalit family became land owners was interesting but was glossed over. Ultimately unsatisfying.

Powerfully written and exhaustively researched, this lightly fictionalized account of the Smith College Relief Unit that assisted French villages decimated by Germany during WWI is an exciting tale of daring do. The Smith Unit, made up of recent graduates of Smith College, were young women mostly brought up to be wealthy, pampered society darlings. They were inspired by a visionary speech and formed a unit that soon found them living in filthy, bombed out buildings and working in dangerous, frontline areas of France.
Willig used the Smith College archives to find the families (and occasionally the women themselves) of the Unit. She had access to letters and diaries written by the women as they toiled in France. The book uses these intimate writings to flesh out the women and tell of their deeds as the women lived them. The women and villagers come alive on the page.
A wonderful book well worth your time.
5 of 5 stars