BookBrowse | Book Reviews and Recommendations

The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road
by Finn Murphy

An Eye-Opening, Intriguing Insider's Account of What Really Happens When You Move (2/14/2024)

What an eye-opener this is! This is an intriguing book for anyone to read, but especially for those who are planning a move be it locally or long-distance. You'll find out what really happens once the movers cross your doorstep--and it's not all good.

The author is Finn …more Murphy, a man who is now in his mid-60s but started in the business at age 17. He's seen and experienced it all, and now he's sharing it with us. Murphy is not your typical mover. He grew up in a large middle-class Irish Catholic family in Cos Cob, Connecticut, attending parochial schools as well as a three-year stint at Colby College in Maine. He dropped out one year before graduation to become a full-time mover, much to his parents' chagrin. (Well, so much chagrin that son and parents didn't speak for two years.)

Murphy is a rare breed. He truly loves being a mover. Always has. OK, there were a few years when he walked off the job in anger, but he came back to it. A typical day is 12 hours long and involves much physical work, including packing boxes, hauling heavy furniture up and down stairs, loading a van with precision so everything fits and doesn't roll around in transit, and after all that, driving hundreds or even thousands of miles. Then rinse and repeat on the other end. Don't forget the lousy food, sleeping in the truck, and showering at truck stops.

This well-written book, which is peppered with SAT-worthy vocabulary words (such as "hegemony," "sanguine," "impecunious," and "mendacious") is a memoir of Murphy's professional life as a mover, but is packed with tidbits, warnings, and inside secrets that anyone who hires a mover will be happy to learn.

Among many other things, find out:
• Why movers know more about you in 30 minutes than your best friends will ever know about you in 30 years.
• Why do people dislike and distrust movers? (Even the movers want to know the answer to this question!)
• Some of the retaliatory measures movers may take if you don't show them a bare modicum of respect.
• How much money top movers can make in a year. (Hint: The answer will surprise you!)

The best parts of the book are the many stories about the homeowners and renters Murphy is paid to move. Some are hilarious, some are zany, and some are truly surprising.

This book is humorous, shocking, and filled with mind-boggling revelations about the moving industry. (less)

A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President
by Jeffrey Toobin

Not for the Prudish! A Well-Researched and Balanced Historical Account—Except for the (2/13/2024)

This is not a book for the prudish.

While author Jeffrey Toobin has written a deeply researched and (in my opinion) balanced account of the two sex scandals that enveloped President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s—Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky—there is a definite "ick" …more

The Frozen River: A Novel
by Ariel Lawhon

Magnificent Storytelling! Page-Turning Historical Fiction Wrapped Around a Riveting Whodunit (2/10/2024)

Oh, what a novel! It just pulled me in and wouldn't let go.

Before you read this book, know two important things:
1. Clear your schedule! Once you start reading, it will be really (really!) hard to stop. Yes, it's THAT good.
2. When you finish it, you will have a whopping …more

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
by A. J. Jacobs

One Man Spends a Year Living the Bible Literally: It's Laugh-Out-Loud Funny and Deeply Spiritual (1/31/2024)

This book should come with a warning! Beware reading it in public places because you will be laughing out loud—repeatedly—and you risk getting the same wary looks from strangers that author A.J. Jacobs endured for the year he decided to live biblically. That is, he lived …more his life, both in his actions and physical appearance, following the Bible as literally as possible.

For quite a few years now, part of my daily spiritual discipline is to read one chapter of the Hebrew Scriptures and one chapter of the New Testament. I get to the end and start over. I'm now on my fourth reading of the Hebrew Scriptures and tenth of the New Testament, and I thought it would be fun to reread this book now that I better understand what Jacobs was trying to do.

Here's the dichotomy of "The Year of Living Biblically": It's both hilarious and spiritually moving—at the same time.

Having grown up a secular Jew—no synagogue, no sabbath dinners, no bar mitzvah—Jacobs decided to read the Bible cover to cover and then try to live out its rules, regulations, and dictums as closely as possible. There are 613 Jewish commandments found mostly in the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Jacobs calls himself agnostic, and he was curious as to whether living the Bible's rules would make him more spiritual and turn him into a believer as he was obeying the Ten Commandments, loving his neighbor, and tithing his income.

Unlike most people who believe the Bible literally, Jacobs's goal was not to pick and choose what to do, but to do it all, including stoning an adulterer, keeping the Sabbath, not wearing clothes of mixed fibers, blowing the shofar on the first of the month, visiting a (real) Samaritan, and playing a 10-string lyre. Yes, some of it is farfetched and attention-getting and a lot of it is sarcastic (but never snarky), but almost all of it is enlightening as he tries to live a life where the ultra-religious customs of Abraham's day clash directly with the mores of the secular 21st century.

He split the quest into two parts. He devoted eight months of the year to the Old Testament, and four months to the New Testament, which included consulting with and interviewing experts, including rabbis, ministers, priests, and scholars of all persuasions—from ultra-conservative to liberal. He ponders big questions, such as how can the Bible be so wise as well as so barbaric? And he considers the seemingly impossible, such as how to make an animal sacrifice on the streets of New York City in 2007, how to become a shepherd, and how to best eat locusts. (He succeeds with all three!)

To look the part, he grew his beard, which became an unruly bird's nest (no trimming allowed!), wore only white clothing, strapped a paper with the Ten Commandments to his forehead every day and adorned his clothes with tassels—all following ancient Jewish law. Then he went about his business in New York, including his day job as a writer for Esquire magazine.

The funniest parts of the book are the reactions he gets from strangers, friends, and family, but no one is funnier in this book than his beleaguered wife, Julie, who must put up with so much!

And then this happens: Jacobs unexpectedly becomes closer to God, discovering the wisdom and poetry of the Bible, finding solace in prayer and meditation, and immersing himself in the mystery of God and the universe. Is he still an agnostic in the end? You'll have to read the book to find out. (less)

The Funeral Cryer: A Novel
by Wenyan Lu

So Disappointing! A Thin Plot, One-Dimensional Characters, and a Stilted, Jarring Writing Style (1/30/2024)

With stilted, almost awkward writing, a thin plot, and one-dimensional characters, this dark and sorrowful book by Wenyan Lu is a disappointment because it has the potential to be so much more.

Taking place in modern-day China but in a remote, rural village that hangs on to …more

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
by Hallie Rubenhold

An Important and Fascinating Fact-Filled Entry into the Myths of Jack the Ripper and His Victims (1/18/2024)

Jack the Ripper, a brutal, evil, psychotic murderer who stalked the foggy nighttime streets of London's East End slums in 1888 is the stuff of legend. He was never caught and still hasn't been identified more than 135 years later. And the women he killed? Oh, they were just …more prostitutes, most would say. That too, is a myth.

Who were these unfortunate women? There were at least five, possibly more. The five "canonical" murders ("canonical" meaning recognized or authoritative in this case) took place in September and November 1888, and this prodigiously researched book by Hallie Rubenhold does what history has ignored until now: Elucidates these women's stories as daughters, wives, and mothers and gives them names and faces and lives.

The introduction, which is titled "A Tale of Two Cities," explains what life was like in London in 1887 when Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee—50 years wearing the crown—and what life was like in the underbelly of the city, namely in the notorious slums of the East End. It is in the introduction that author Hallie Rubenhold describes the grisly murders of the women, all of whom were killed in their sleep. And that is all we hear about the ghoulish killings. The rest of the book focuses on the lives and loves, the joys and sufferings of the five women.

Their names are Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elisabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.

Find out fascinating facts:
• Only one of the women was a prostitute (Mary Jane Kelly, who was murdered in November, while all the others were murdered in September), but all of them were alcoholics and all either had failed marriages or no marriage. All were on their own without a husband, a dangerous and precarious hardship in this age. There is no hard evidence that the first four of them were prostitutes; the police made that assumption when their bodies were found in a dark yard or street. Find out what it was like to live their lives as single women without male protection.

• Because the police were so convinced the women were prostitutes, the entire investigation was slanted that way and absolutely tainted. Worse, they ignored the one thing the five homicides did have in common!

• Find out how the focus of the murder investigations became a moral inquiry to the women's lives.

• Learn about the horrific reality of what it meant to live in the East End, especially Whitechapel, the most notorious and sordid of the London slums and where all the Jack the Ripper murders occurred. It was here that an entire family might inhabit one eight-foot by eight-foot room that was infested with vermin along with broken windows and damp walls. Outside there were stagnant pools of disease-breeding water, slicks of sewage, and rubbish-filled roads.

• Find out what it was like to be a woman, especially an unmarried woman, at a time when women had no voice, few rights, and just by being poor they would be labeled lazy and degenerate—or worse. This is how history has viewed these five murder victims, which is almost as great a crime as that committed by Jack the Ripper.

Bonus: Be sure to read the final chapter titled "Just Prostitutes" for the author's impassioned and eloquent opinions as to why the victims were labeled as prostitutes and how the story of Jack the Ripper is a narrative of a killer's deep and abiding hatred of women.

My heart broke for these five women and the tragedies that led them to Whitechapel with lives so precarious that they had no idea where they would eat next or sleep that night. This is an important and fascinating fact-filled entry into the myths of Jack the Ripper and his unfortunate victims. (less)

Five Tuesdays in Winter
by Lily King

An Impressive Collection of Short Stories: From the Delightful to the Dark, Each One is a Gem (1/17/2024)

I read a lot of short story collections, and it's rare that almost all the stories in the collection are excellent. This is one of those rare collections. Each of the 10 stories has a compelling plot, characters that seem real, and just the right amount of tension or …more

Unlikely Animals: A Novel
by Annie Hartnett

Quirky and Absurd: A Highly Imaginative, Colorful, Roller-Coaster of a Novel That I Highly Recommend (1/15/2024)

Quirky and whimsical. Peculiar and absurd. Is there a genre for eccentric literature? That's the best way to describe this highly imaginative novel by Annie Hartnett that almost gave me whiplash with the many sudden shifts, changes, twists, and turns of the characters and …more the plot. Readers, fasten your seatbelt!

This is the story of Emma Starling, who grew up in the very small town of Everton, New Hampshire. Her 68-year-old father, Clive, is a poetry professor at the local Meriden College and wears his gray hair in a braided ponytail, sports numerous tattoos (some of which he inked himself), and drives a motorcycle with a sidecar. Her mother, Ingrid, is 16 years younger than her husband and is a librarian at Meriden College, president of the Everton Historical Society, and the sole caretaker of a local historical mansion and its extensive grounds; she is Clive's fourth wife, and the first to bear him children. Emma's younger brother, Auggie, is a recovering drug addict, who lives at home without a job or real purpose.

When the book opens, Emma, 22, is returning home for Thanksgiving from Los Angeles where she attended college and is supposedly in medical school. On her way from the airport in her rental car, she picks up a hitchhiker—a big white dog she names Moses. Her father is dying from a mysterious brain disease that causes hallucinations, forgetfulness, and tremors. He was recently fired from his job when he hallucinated dozens of cats crawling around his classroom and in his panic inappropriately touched one of his female students. Clive hallucinates a lot, mostly animals but also the ghost of naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes, the real-life Doctor Doolittle of New Hampshire, who gives Clive some weird ideas of what to do with his last months on Earth, including helping him order a pet fox from Russia that he names Rasputin.

In addition to having to face her father's final illness, Emma has a big secret that she needs to confess to her parents: Although she was admitted to medical school at UCLA, she got scared and never showed up. Emma was pushed into being a doctor because ever since her birth, the townspeople have believed she has magic healing hands—something the town called "The Charm," but what is also known as charismata iamaton. Meanwhile, Clive is obsessed with finding Crystal Nash, Emma's best friend from high school, who is a heroin addict and has seemingly disappeared. Or is she dead?

Auggie's drug habit, which began with legitimately prescribed opioids for a high school football injury and turned into a heroin addiction, is mirrored many times over in this little town. Emma gets a job as a long-term substitute teacher at the elementary school because the teacher is on leave as her husband, the local used car salesman, is on trial for dealing drugs. There are only eight children in the fifth-grade class, but there should be nine: One of the little girls recently died of leukemia. And, of course, just to add something else to this complicated plot, Emma is falling hard for the former high school hunk who is now a biology teacher at the school.

And there is more! Included in this small New England town is an enclosed, private park of 26,000 acres that is populated by a wide variety of animals, most of which are not native to New Hampshire. It was fenced in 135 years ago by a 19th century robber baron as his grand retirement project. Several anonymous millionaires now own and vacation inside the park, commuting in and out to their hunting cabins by private helicopter.

Here's the quirkiest feature of all: The omniscient narrators of the book—much like a Greek chorus—are the dead people in the town's Maple Street Cemetery.

Whew! See what I mean about literary whiplash? But I give author Annie Hartnett big kudos for making this absurd roller coaster of a book come to a complete and safe stop by ensuring that the loose ends and weird wanderings all fit together in a most fun and enjoyable way. The ending is perfect!

This is a highly imaginative novel with colorful characters and a tragic/comic storyline that borders on hectic it's so busy, but it's always delightful with underlying messages and wisdom about the angst of guilt and shame, the pain and loneliness of grief, and the value of life and love.

More than anything, it is a love letter to animals—from frogs to foxes and bears to boars. Highly recommended!

Bonus: Do read the author's note at the end to find out what (surprisingly!) is true in this novel that apparently is all in the author's imagination. (less)

Young Mungo
by Douglas Stuart

A Literary Triumph: A Brilliant, Brutal, and Tragic Gay Love Story That Broke My Heart Over and Over (1/11/2024)

This book is brilliant...and brutal. It's a magnificent gay love story wrapped around horrific, shuddering violence. It is deeply profound with a storyline that is heartbreaking, tragic, and difficult to read. And I couldn't put it down.

Masterfully written by Booker Prize- …more winner Douglas Stuart, this is the story of Mungo Hamilton, a 15-year-old Protestant boy living in the east end of Glasgow, Scotland, who comes from nothing. No money, little love, and lots of uncertainty and instability. His mother, Mo-Maw, is an alcoholic who takes up with men and moves in with them, temporarily abandoning her three teenage children. Mungo's older brother, Hamish, is the father of a baby with his 15-year-old girlfriend and alternates living at home and in his girlfriend's mother's flat. He is a gang leader, callously sadistic, and has physically and psychologically brutalized Mungo for years, often forcing him to participate in his bloody and brutal gang fights. Jodie, Mungo's older sister, is the only constant in his life. She is smart, she loves Mungo, and she cares for him like a mother even though she is only a year older than Mungo.

Mungo has grown up without friends, but one day he meets James Jamieson, a Catholic boy his own age with his own heartbreaking story to tell. James raises pigeons in a shanty-like doocot (dovecote) as a way to escape his otherwise bleak life. The two become friends—well, more than friends. And for the first time ever, Mungo is happy. But their love must be a deeply guarded secret, not only because they are gay but also because one is Catholic and one is Protestant.

This tightly nuanced novel has two distinct storylines adeptly woven into each other. One tells the story of Mungo's life in the low-income housing tenements on the wrong side of Glasgow while the other tells of a weekend fishing trip his mother arranges for him to take with two of her creepy acquaintances from Alcoholics Anonymous, both of whom were recently released from prison for sex crimes. Mungo is gay, and while he has come to privately accept this, his mother thinks this fishing weekend will make a man of him. But things go terribly, shockingly, irreversibly wrong, turning what had been up to that point a coming-of-age/love story into a violent thriller.

Bonus: Do read Douglas Stuart's short essay, "The Birdmen of Glasgow" at the end of the book that was first published in Literary Hub in April 2022. It's a fascinating look at growing up in the east end of Glasgow (the setting of the book) and the "doo men" who raised pigeons in doocots all over the edges of the housing tenements.

One note: The novel's dialogue is in vernacular Scottish, and most of it was easy to figure out—even though I had never seen these words before. That said, when I couldn't decipher/translate a word, the Kindle dictionary/Wikipedia helped and failing that, Google came to the rescue.

And a warning: Violence permeates this novel, and it is graphic. Just know that before you choose to read this book.

This book truly is a literary triumph. With vivid, colorful characters and a bold, multilayered storyline that doesn't shy from the truth, this is a remarkable and compelling novel that seared my heart and soul. It is a terribly sad and elegiac book that is emotionally devastating in places, so read with caution. (less)

The Vaster Wilds: A Novel
by Lauren Groff

A Daring Literary Achievement: No Plot, One Character, a Very Sad Ending…and I Couldn't Stop Reading (1/10/2024)

I will confess right from the get-go that Lauren Groff is one of my favorite authors. If she writes it, I read it. That said, while I am in awe of the literary power of this book, it is not for everyone.

There is no plot. There is only one character, and she doesn't have a …more name other than "Girl," although she is sometimes called Lamentations Callat, Wench, or Zed. Much of the narrative reads and feels like a fever dream. And the ending is sad…so very, very sad.

It's the early 1600s. Girl, who is about 16 or 17 years old, flees in the middle of a frigid winter night from an early colonial American settlement, probably Jamestown. Everyone is starving. People are dying of hunger and disease. She steals the boots of a boy who died of smallpox and swipes her mistress's heavy cloak. Into a sack she packs a pewter cup, a flint, a knife, a hatchet, and two lice-infested brown coverlets. And off she goes, running as fast as she can in the hopes she can escape before they come looking for her. She knows they will come searching, and if they find her, it will be a violent end. So she must get away—fast. Because what she did is not forgivable.

Girl survives by her wits, battling nature from winter's cold to wild beasts, battling herself and her body's need for food, water, warmth, and rest, and battling man, including one who tries to stone her to death. Taking place over a few weeks, the novel is the story of her flight and survival through the wilderness as she tries to walk to Canada (without any real idea of where she is going), as well as numerous flashbacks to her life in England and her life in the colonial settlement. Until she was four years old, she was in an orphanage/poorhouse in England when she was purchased by a family needing a servant. The mistress treats her kindly, adopting her as a kind of pet, but the teenage son abuses her horribly. The mistress is widowed, and her second husband, a minister, takes the family to the New World against their wishes.

Deftly written in a way that makes prose seem like poetry, this is a book to be savored and reread. It is not suspenseful, it is not a page-turner, but it is captivating and almost seductive. I felt Girl's fear, her body's cold, her hunger, her determination, and her courage. I felt like I was out there in the dark forests with her as she trudged north, as she slowly reveals her secrets to the reader.

This novel is an inspired tribute to the power of the individual to choose a life that is different from the community, to forge a path that no one else has taken, to live a new life. Lauren Groff has written what I can only describe as a daring literary achievement. (less)

Old God's Time: A Novel
by Sebastian Barry

A Profound, Extraordinary Work of Fiction, but Oh, It Is a Dark and Desolate Tale (12/21/2023)

This is a profound, extraordinary work of literary fiction, but it's not easy to read for two reasons. First, it is written in a kind of stream of consciousness that flits from one thought to another and then back again. Second, the subject matter—Irish Catholic priests …more sexually abusing young boys and girls—is abhorrent, but a vitally important tale to tell.

Masterfully written by Sebastian Barry, this book, which was longlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize, tells the life story of Thomas Kettle. We meet Tom at age 66 in the 1990s as he is settling into a lovely retirement flat attached to a Victorian castle overlooking a busy harbor in Dalkey, a suburb of Dublin. Tom has retired after working for decades as a garda (police officer). He is a widower; he and his beloved wife, June, had two children. Winnie studied to be an attorney, and Joe became a doctor and moved to a remote part of New Mexico to care for the indigenous population there.

Tom and June were both orphans, growing up without parents or siblings and knowing nothing of their birth origins. They have one other awful thing in common: Both were sexually abused by priests serving their orphanages, and it is this destructive, depressive legacy they both carry into adulthood and their marriage.

One night, about nine months after Tom has moved into his little flat, two men knock on his door. They are with the police department and have come seeking his expert assistance on a 30-year-old unsolved cold case. A priest had been brutally murdered in the 1960s, and the police are hoping modern-day forensics might help solve it. This crime catapults Tom back into time, dredging up all sorts of memories he thought he had buried. But what is real? What is imagined? And what is dreamed?

This is a book about aging, memory, and the meaning of life. The phrase "old God's time" means a period beyond memory, and this is such a perfect title for the book as Tom ventures ominously into his own old God's time and place. Oh, this is a dark and desolate tale, but it is so brilliantly written that I was smitten with the words, the language, and the meaning.

Just be aware: The descriptions of priest-abuse of very young children are quite graphic and extremely disturbing, but essential to the story. (less)

The Soul of a Woman
by Isabel Allende

A Hybrid of a Book: Part Memoir, Part Feminist Manifesto, Part Meditation, Part Romantic Advice (12/19/2023)

This book is a hybrid: part memoir, part feminist manifesto, part meditation, and part romantic advice. It's a bit of everything!

Written by the brilliant novelist Isabel Allende, this short nonfiction book primarily examines the role of women in society, as well as offering …more

The House Is on Fire
by Rachel Beanland

Magnificent Storytelling! A Riveting Tale of Tragedy, Heroism, and Redemption That Is Unputdownable (12/13/2023)

This riveting story of tragedy, heroism, and the power of redemption is magnificent storytelling about a dark time in our nation's history.

Written by Rachel Beanland, this is a fictionalized account of the true story of the horrific fire that destroyed the only theater in …more Richmond, Virginia on December 26, 1811 with more than 600 men, women, and children inside—dozens of whom were trapped and perished in the flames and smoke.

Ingeniously plotted, it is told from the point of view of four different people:
• Sally Henry Campbell: Now a young widow, the daughter of Patrick Henry attends the play with her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Archie and Margaret Campbell, sitting in a third-floor box along with about a dozen other people.

• Jack Gibson: A 14-year-old working backstage, whose actions cause the deadly fire.

• Cecily Patterson: A young slave who accompanied her mistress to the play but sat in the gallery with the other slaves and freed Blacks. She escapes the fire but realizes that if her master and mistress assume she has died, this is her chance to run away to the north.

• Gilbert Hunt: A middle-aged slave and blacksmith who is a giant of a man—in body and heart. When he hears about the fire, he races to the site and heroically saves about a dozen women by catching them as they jump out the windows.

The story is plotted daily from the night of the fire on Thursday, December 26 to Sunday, December 29, following historical events through the actions, thoughts, and feelings of the four characters. As officials try to discern the cause of the fire, the theater company tries to cover it up, blaming it on a nonexistent slave rebellion, which in turn creates mayhem for the local slave population.

Meanwhile, Sally comes to a startling conclusion about why so many of the 72 people who died that night were women, and Cecily's plans to run away may be thwarted as she involves her family with potentially deadly consequences for them. Gilbert Hunt is lauded as a hero, but his cruel master is disgusted and appalled at the adulation and takes it out on Gilbert. Jack is tormented between supporting the lies started by the theater company about the slave rebellion causing the fire and confessing his own guilt in the matter.

This is historical fiction at its finest! The plot is riveting, and the writing is superb. Each chapter focuses on one of the four characters, and it doesn't take long for those chapters to end in cliffhangers, making this one of those unputdownable books.

Bonus: Do read the fascinating Author's Note at the end as it details many facts about the fire and its aftermath years later. (less)

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World
by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter

What a Treasure! It Made Me Smile, It Made Me Tear Up (a Lot!), but Most of All It Touched My Heart (12/10/2023)

Oh, this book is a little treasure. It made me smile and it made me tear up (a lot!), but most of all, it touched my heart. If you love cats, reading, and libraries—or any one of those—this is a must-read.

Written by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter, this is the astonishing and …more

Hang the Moon: A Novel
by Jeannette Walls

A Roller Coaster of a Book! Strap on Your Seat Belt Because This Is a Raucous Literary Ride (12/8/2023)

If Sallie Kincaid, the 19-year-old lead character in this roller coaster of a book by Jeannette Walls were real, we would be singing ballads written about her. What a character! What a book!

Taking place primarily in the early 1920s in the poor, rural Virginia area of East …more Appalachia where the scars of World War I are still being felt by those who served, this is the story of Sallie Kincaid—a Tomboy with a capital "T"—and her outsized, powerful, and wealthy father Henry Edward Kincaid, who is known to everyone (even his daughter) as the Duke. (In Sallie's eyes, the Duke "hung the moon and scattered the stars," hence the title of the book.) The Duke has led quite a checkered life with four wives—the first of whom he divorced and second of whom he murdered (and got away with it)—and three children.

Sallie is the middle child, the daughter of the murdered wife, but she is so much like the Duke that he loves and adores her. Still, she has a rough life, being banished from the household at age eight only to return at age 17. Even though he holds no elected office, the Duke absolutely controls Claiborne County, Virginia with his numerous and often shady business dealings and political connections. When it's Sallie's turn at the helm, she is faced with a deadly family feud between the Kincaids and the Bonds, as well as the new laws of prohibition that turn the county's prolific whiskey business, dominated by the Black citizens, into a dangerous bootlegging operation with Sallie in charge.

The magic of the novel is in Sallie's introspective thoughts and conflicts. As she expertly wields a Remington-22 rifle that she bought for $3 as a child and plots ways to strike the Bond family, she is also considering the moral and ethical implications of everything she and others do. All of this becomes quite complicated, considering the life she is leading.

Just a note: I never saw it while I was reading the novel, but in the acknowledgements, author Jeannette Walls says the story was loosely inspired by England's King Henry VIII—his life and his many wives. And yes! The connection is brilliant. The Duke's first name is even "Henry." Clearly, Sallie Kincaid is the double of Queen Elizabeth I, the daughter of the beheaded Anne Boleyn.

This book is a winner for two reasons: Sallie is one of the best book characters I have ever encountered, and the plot never lets up with surprise and tragic twists at every turn. Strap on your seat belt because this is a raucous literary ride! (less)

My Reading Life
by Pat Conroy

A Must-Read for Pat Conroy Fans: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Wizard of Southern Novels (11/21/2023)

Pat Conroy is one of my favorite authors, and I simply devoured this book that gave delightful and tragic insights into his life—so much so that this could double as a book titled "My Writing Life" or simply "My Life." While he does discuss some of his favorite books, the …more

The Night Strangers: A Novel
by Chris Bohjalian

A Hauntingly Scary Gothic Ghost Story That Had Me Shivering in Fright (and Delight)! (11/19/2023)

Oh, what a devilishly creepy, hauntingly scary Gothic ghost story that had me shivering in fright (and delight!).

But one important word of caution: Do not read this book after dark. And most especially, do not read this book just before falling asleep or you will have …more

Stealing: A Novel
by Margaret Verble

Brilliant Storytelling! An Emotionally Searing Novel About the Impact of Prejudice and Injustice (11/16/2023)

This is an exceptional, imaginative, and emotionally searing novel about the dangers of prejudice, the impact of hate, the wounds of injustice, and the small victims whose lives are never the same.

Brilliantly written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble, this is the …more story of third-grader Kit Crockett. It's the 1950s, deep in the South, near the Arkansas River. Kit's father is a descendant of Davy Crockett, and her mother, who died two years earlier, was a Cherokee Indian. Kit and her grieving father live deep in the country. She spends her time reading Nancy Drew mysteries, tending to the garden, and waiting for the Tuesday morning visit from the bookmobile. She and her father are both incredibly lonely and unable to reach out to each other. One day as Kit is going to the bayou to fish for their dinner, she sees that someone has moved into a nearby cabin that was once occupied by her Uncle Joe. That someone turns out to be Bella, a beautiful and mysterious young woman. She and Kit become fast friends. Although Kit is unaware of it, Bella is a prostitute, entertaining two men in her small home. And then one day, Bella is murdered and somehow Kit's dad is in jail. After living with the local evangelical preacher and his wife, Kit is shipped off—against her will—to a Christian boarding school that feels more like a prison than a school as she is treated with disdain and indoctrinated with Christian instruction she resents. When Kit gets in trouble and is sent to the office, the most horrific thing happens.

Here is the genius of this book: While the summary I wrote above is linear, the book is meant to be Kit's journal that she writes (now in sixth grade) while confined in the school/prison and the timeline jumps all over the place. Instead of being confusing, it becomes a fascinating and gripping tale told with insight and introspection about the injustice of Kit's life being stolen from her. As adults, we know things about Kit's experiences that she is unable to understand as a child, and that is even more heartbreaking.

I only have one criticism: The ending is abrupt, but that is probably the point. It forces the reader to use a bit of imagination to continue the story.

This is excellent storytelling, transporting the reader to another time and place. (less)

The Faraway World: Stories
by Patricia Engel

An Extraordinary and Imaginative Collection of Short Stories About the Joys and Brutality of Life (11/14/2023)

This is an introspective, accomplished, and brilliantly observed collection of 10 short stories by Patricia Engel that all have one thing in common: There is another world—a faraway world—that the characters in each of the stories yearn for, remember, or are escaping. Today' …more s world can be gritty and grueling. But the faraway world? That is the place of hopes and dreams even if it doesn't exist.

Unusually for short story collections, every single one is excellent. I can't even choose my favorites to highlight below because each one was better than the one before. Each one has characters that are richly and deeply depicted. Each one has a plot that kept me turning the pages. And each one either filled me with joy or broke my heart—or both.

The setting for most of the stories is in Colombia or Cuba with a few in New York. (There is a lot of Spanish in the book, so I found the Kindle translate feature quite helpful.)

Here are four to highlight that shows the diversity of the stories, but I could have chosen all of them:
• "Aida": Aida and Salma are identical twins living with their often-bickering parents in a small town near New York City. They are very close. One day, Aida disappears…and no one can find her. Did she run away or was she abducted? How her family comes together and eventually falls apart during the time she is missing is heartbreaking.

• "The Book of Saints": A young Colombian woman meets online a twice-divorced and much older American man, who convinces her to leave her impoverished life and become his wife. After the wedding in Colombia, she moves to New York, but her life is nothing like she imagined.

• "Ramiro": Ramiro is just another slum kid from the worst part of Colombia, and after he commits several crimes, he is sentenced to work in a Roman Catholic church under the watchful eye of Padre Andrade. But Ramiro does something atrocious, and he is headed for big trouble until the priest does something that is very surprising.

• " Libélula": This is the story of two Colombian women living in New York. One is wealthy and privileged. The other is poor and is hired as the fulltime maid and eventual nanny. The husband works long hours and is bored with his wife, who is unable to get pregnant. And then one night, he comes into the maid's bedroom…

This is an extraordinary and imaginative collection of short stories about the joys and brutality of life. I highly recommend it. (less)

The Confessions of Frannie Langton
by Sara Collins

It's a Page Turner! Literary Historical Fiction Wrapped Around a Sensational Murder Mystery (11/10/2023)

This literary historical novel has just about everything to keep the pages turning. At the heart of this book by Sara Collins is a sensational murder mystery swathed in betrayal, jealousy, forbidden sex, drug addiction, the evils of slavery, and the privilege and …more entitlement of the British upper class.

The book opens in April 1826 with Frannie Langton imprisoned in the notorious Newgate Prison in London, awaiting trial at the Old Bailey Criminal Court for the double murder of her employers, George and Marguerite Benham. They were discovered one night stabbed to death in their London home. He was in his library. She was in her bed. And lying next to Marguerite sound asleep and covered in her mistress's blood was Frannie, who quickly became dubbed by the broadsheets as The Mulatta Murderess. Frannie has no memory of what happened, so she sits in prison writing her life story to her attorney.

But back up a bit. After this prologue, the novel switches to 1812 on a sugar cane plantation in Jamaica that is owned by John Langton and powered with the muscle and sweat of slaves. One of those slaves is Frannie, a house girl whose father is the master, and who teaches her to read and write as an experiment to see how much Blacks can learn. Meanwhile, Langton and a crony are up to no good in the estate's old coach-house, and they drag Frannie into their devious and sadistic experiments to "prove" the differences between the races. After a devastating fire, Langton and Frannie flee to London where he gives Frannie to George Benham in exchange for what he hopes will be assistance publishing his lifelong research. Benham is also working on the same type of dubious and horrifying research. England has outlawed slavery, so Frannie is supposedly free, although where else could she go? Benham threatens her with a destitute life on the streets if she doesn't tell him everything Langton was doing, while Marguerite chooses Frannie as her personal lady's maid. But there is more than dressing and cleaning going on in this room, as the two discover a forbidden love that thrills them both. And then one day, it all comes to an abrupt and cruel end…until Benham makes a request of Frannie that is despicable and shocking. Hours later, the Benhams are dead.

Who is the murderer? That revelation gave me the shivers!

This literary novel is also wrapped around two classics, "Moll Flanders" by Daniel Defoe and "Candide," by Voltaire. Plot points and imagery from both are woven throughout this imaginative, gritty, and compelling story of how the upper classes oppress and subjugate the lower classes, especially those of color.

Frannie may have no power, no status, no wealth, and nothing to call her own, but she has a powerful and impressive voice that no one can silence and that is what illuminates this book. (less)