On the glorious beaches of Southern California and Hawaii, the surf is up in this 1960s-era tale about mothers and daughters.
You can practically hear The Beach Boys singing “California Girls” in this novel about surfer sisters Mindy and Ginger Donnelly and their mother, Carol, a world-class athlete and terrible mom. Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Malibu Rising (2021) will enjoy this story, which shares some of same locales, but the dysfunctional family at its center is one of a kind. Carol is a water creature who never got the knack of how to be a mother. Her first love is the ocean, and her daughters suffer because of it. They wear dirty clothes, Carol forgets to pick them up at school, and she regularly abandons them to hit the beach. When Mindy and Ginger are teens, they too become surfers, though Mindy is a natural and Ginger is struggling to keep up. Things go sideways when Mindy outshines Carol in the water, and that's just the beginning of the grown-up problems the sisters face. Benjamin nails the damage caused by traumatic childhoods marked by insecurity and fear of abandonment. Mindy becomes a shallow minor celebrity garnering small roles in beach movies, and Ginger comes under the spell of a narcissistic drug user. The three Donnellys go their separate ways until, years later, fate steps in. This sun-soaked novel is wonderfully awash in the music, television, and fashion of the '60s as well as the counterculture movement that touted drugs and dropping out. Benjamin based this novel, in part, on real-life female surfers who faced sexism in the mid-20th century.
A sun-drenched tale of two sisters trying to make peace with their past.

One Puzzling Afternoon was just what I was hoping for. It was a mystery with a lot of heart, and it was truly unique.

First of all, the narrator of this story is an elderly woman who has a lot of “mix-ups” in her mind. As the reader, you have a lot of suspicions about what that might mean, but you don’t find out about any diagnosed condition right away. As you jump back and forth between Edie’s memories and her present day, you learn more about her and her family, and the way her memories slip.

Have you heard the term “unreliable narrator” in books? It’s a concept we went over quite a few times when I was in school getting my degree in English. If done well, it can add a lot to a story. In this case, it really added to the mystery for me. The flashbacks are really vivid and detailed in her mind, then present times get more muddled as the book goes on. How much can you really trust her thoughts and her memories, which are what you’re immersed in? This concept really made the mystery elements pop for me.

Plus, Edie can tell her muddles are getting more frequent and it becomes kind of a race against the clock to figure out what happened to Lucy before the forgetfulness takes over her thoughts.

Not only is the mystery exciting as you get closer to figuring out what happened to Lucy so many years ago, but the author really managed to add heart to the story. It’s really not just a mystery, but instead it’s a story of a family and their very much loved mother/grandmother having memory problems. It adds this really important second layer of family and heart to the story.

Overall, I really liked this book! The mystery was captivating, the characters hooked me, and I looked forward to reading this every day to find out what was going to happen. I recommend picking this one up! 4 stars.

"North Woods," penned by a Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of "The Piano Tuner" and "The Winter Soldier," unfolds as a sweeping tale that spans centuries, intricately woven around a single house in the New England woods. The narrative follows a succession of inhabitants, from young lovers escaping a Puritan colony to an English soldier turning his back on glory for the pursuit of apples. The diverse characters, including spinster twins, a crime reporter, a lovelorn painter, and even a stalking panther, contribute to a rich tapestry of history, nature, and literature.

The novel's exploration of memory and fate resonates as each character confronts the mysteries of the North Woods. The seasonal structure, divided into the twelve months of the year, promises a unique and immersive storytelling experience. The interconnectedness of individuals across time, language, and space adds a magical quality to the narrative, highlighting the enduring ties between people and their environment. "North Woods" appears to be an unforgettable journey through secrets and fates, posing the timeless question of how we live on, even after we're gone.