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2022 Reads and Reviews ~ Anything goes
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The View From Penthouse B – Elinor Lipman – 3.5*** rounded up
Two sisters and a handsome, cupcake-baking young man share a Greenwich Village apartment and support one another’s efforts to get back into life. What a charming comedy of manners, reminiscent of Jane Austen, but updated to the 21st century. The scenarios and the characters are believable and relatable. Their dialogue sparkles. I love how they support and encourage one another through thick and thin, and many complications relationship wise. Just delightful fun.
LINK to my full review
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Twisted Twenty-Six
Janet Evanovich
3/5 stars
Stephanie Plum is back and now and has to look after her Grandma Mazur who decided to marry a local mobster who dies soon after the wedding. The problem with that, is that her dead husband supposedly has the keys to a large fortune, and his mobster associates think she now has the keys. Plum has to keep an eye on her grandma because the mob wants that money, and she is a target. I still get a kick out of these characters plus her books are a fast read!
A Cowboy For Christmas – Lori Wilde – 2.5**
Okay, it’s an Avon Romance and I was expecting something predictable and heart-warming, not great literature. This had a lovely premise: a struggling, young widow with a toddler, meets her late husband’s estranged brother and the sparks fly. But there’s a very weak subplot involving Lissy’s mother-in-law; this tortured character just tortured me every time she appeared on the page, and the book lost a ½ star as a result. That’s not to say that I won’t get back on the horse and try another of Wilde’s cowboy romances in the future.
LINK to my full review
Mod
Lindbergh
by A. Scott Berg
5/5 stars
I love A. Scott Berg and would read anything by him. He doesn't disappoint in this detailed and interesting book about Lindbergh which recounts his life, his tragedies, triumphs and his death. Highly recommended!
Find a Trail or Blaze One: A Biography of Dr. Reatha Clark King by Kate Leibfried5 stars and a heart
I absolutely loved this book, but I have to say, I could be a little biased. The author is my first cousin's daughter, so she is my first cousin once removed. I did meet her once at a family function, but aside from that I don't actually know her. At that time she had written one book which was in the fantasy genre, which is not really my cup of tea and left me kind of confused. When I happened to see she had written a biography, my favorite genre, of course I had to check it out. The book is about a black woman who moved to Minnesota to head a new college that was floundering, and went on to be a leader at General Mills, running their philanthropic division. Even though I live in Minnesota, I did not know who Reatha Clark King was before I read this book. She is an amazing woman who shattered glass ceilings and opened doors for women and many disadvantaged people. Growing up in the South and coming of age in the 60's, she overcame many obstacles on her way to going to college, becoming a chemist, an educator, and a businesswoman whose first priority was helping people less fortunate. Very interesting lady, this book held my interest from beginning to end.
How To Walk Away – Katherine Center – 3.5***
There are many kinds of “happily ever after…” I’d read one book by Center previously and I wasn’t all that impressed. So, I wasn’t expecting much more than a contemporary romance with possibly “relevant issues” for today’s woman thrown in. I was pleasantly surprised that my expectations were exceeded. Margaret’s journey is what kept me interested. She has many downs, and a few ups, but ultimately, she takes charge of her life in a way that is totally believable and had me cheering her on.
LINK to my full review
A Royal Pain – Rhys Bowen – 3***
Book two in Her Royal Spyness cozy mystery series, has Lady Georgiana Rannoch (Georgie to her friends) hosting a Bavarian princess as part of Her Majesty’s plan to get the Prince of Wales interested in a more suitable partner than that awful American woman. I like Georgie as a character, and love her grandfather, as well as her best friend, Belinda. But the plot here didn’t really capture my attention. Still, it did give an added dimension to Darcy O’Mara. He may be more than just an unreliable rogue…
LINK to my full review
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Dolls! Dolls! Dolls!: Deep Inside Valley of the Dolls, the Most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Time
Stephen Rebello
4/5 stars
If you have ever seen Valley of The Dolls, you’ll love this book that covers all the dirt in the making of this movie based on Jacqueline Susann’s 1966 book. Rebello thoroughly covers every aspect of the making of this movie!
The Christmas Bookshop – Jenny Colgan – 3***
This was a delightful rom-com. The city of Edinburgh is described as a virtual living Christmas card during this season, with fairy lights and snow and decorations, and all the shopkeepers on the street hosting parties. Our down-on-her-luck heroine will meet two promising romantic leads: a famous bestselling author and a bedraggled college professor. Of course, there’s a hugely successful attorney sister Carmen feels inferior to, and the additional drama of the “mean-girl” nanny. But never fear, this holiday romance will deliver on the promise of an HEA ending.
LINK to my full review
Things My Son Needs To Know About the World – Fredrik Backman – 3***
In this collection of essays, Backman speaks directly to his infant / toddler son about life and being a man. He covers such subjects as bullies, getting your child to eat, being careful, the importance of best friends, and love. It’s tender and funny and entertaining.
LINK to my full review
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Things My Son Needs To Know About the World
– Fredrik Backman – 3***
In this collection of essays, Backman speaks directly to h..."
I enjoyed this book and the author too!
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Nora Ephron: A Biography
Kristin Marguerite Doidge
4/5 stars
This isn’t the first book I have read about Nora Ephron but she is such an interesting subject to read about and was such a success in her career with writing and film that not every book on her can contain all that we know about her. When I checked this out from the library I work at, one of the patrons saw that I had that book and she wanted to check it out too. I think Ephron’s life was not long enough for her fans, family and friends yet she will still be a role model to women everywhere!
Get a Life, Chloe Brown – Talia Hilbert – 3***
I was drawn to the book because of the promise of a heroine who faces some significant challenges. I did get that, and some other serious issues, along with the typical rom-com tropes, but the book fell flat for me. I really liked Chloe and totally understood both her insecurities and her desire to break out and DO things. I also liked Red, the super of her apartment building with tattoos, a leather jacket and a motorbike, who promises to help her with her list. The chemistry between the two seemed genuine and I liked their banter. But the graphic sex scenes which just turned me off. I’m still willing to try another book by Hibbert, but I’m in no hurry to do so.
LINK to my full review
Charles Manson and the Killing of Shorty Shea by Edwin Colin3 stars
A really good read that told me a great deal about Don "Shorty" Shea, his family and friends, and life at the Spahn movie ranch -- one of the wellsprings of the Manson murders. This book includes quite a decent amount of "what ever happened to this person after the trial" biographical detail. I was thrown to learn nothing more at all about Juan Flynn, who counted Shorty as his best friend, but I learned a great deal more about some of the others in this cast of characters. Worth your time! The authors know the difference between "hone" and "home" but I still don't understand why they kept putting an asterisk after a statement and then put the "footnote" -- if it really was a footnote -- 2 paragraphs away or immediately afterwards in the text. Made no sense at all to me. Timelines were scrambled and people met for the first time after they had worked together for years in another series of surreal touches. But those are quibbles; this is a great place to learn about the doomed ranch hand and his colorful life.
Mod
Winch
Paul Winchell
4/5 stars
Probably best known as a puppeteer and TV star, the rest of his life was a series of ups and downs especially regarding his mother. But he was also an inventor and friends with Dr. Heimlich. He consulted with him about using hypnosis during surgery and worked on an artificial heart. He also experimented on electric cars and was the first to develop disposable razors among other things. Highly recommended and very interesting!
Eight Perfect Hours – Lia Louis – 3***
Sam and Noelle meet when both are stranded in their cars during a blizzard. When the weather clears they part, strangers still and not expecting to see one another again. But you wouldn’t have a romance if they didn’t keep bumping into one another. It’s a fairly predictable story line and a fast read. NOT a holiday book, though, despite the cover’s promise. There are some serious issues these characters must deal with on the road to HEA.
LINK to my full review
The Five Wounds – Kirstin Valdez Quade – 4.5****
What Quade’s characters share is that desire to “be someone else” and/or somewhere else, but no real means of achieving that. They dream, but are somehow powerless to change their circumstances, falling back on old patterns of behavior, afraid to let go of their past to head into the future. Despite how they infuriated me, and how often I wanted to just shake some sense into them, I wound up really loving these characters.
LINK to my full review
How To Raise an Elephant – Alexander McCall Smith – 3***
Book # 21 in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series set in Botswana and featuring Mma Precious Ramotswe and the other employees (partners?) of the agency, as well as friends and relatives. As is typical for this series, the mysteries are not murders, but a cousin who has some financial difficulties, or a woman with a straying husband, and also figuring out why the suspension in Mma Ramotswe’s beloved little white van seems to have gone bad … not to mention the peculiar smell coming from the back of the van.
LINK to my full review
All I Want For Christmas Is a Cowboy – Jessica Clare – 3***
Young woman with a stressful job decides to go to her family’s cabin in Wyoming over Christmas for some alone time. Misses the turn in a blizzard, crashes her car and is rescued by a handsome cowboy. It's a predictable, fast holiday cowboy romance. And I did so like looking at the cover!
LINK to my full review
The Shop On Royal Street – Karen White – 2.5**
This is the beginning of a spinoff series from White’s popular Tradd Street novels (which I haven’t read). White has included all the tropes of Southern gothic and chick-lit romance: ghosts, family secrets, an irascible grandmother, enemies-to-friends (lovers), a stereotypical Southern Belle best friend who speaks in cute-n-colorful Southernism. It was a fast read, but I’ve already forgotten it.
LINK to my full review
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Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret
Steve Luxenberg
4/5 stars
Steve Luxenberg knew that his mother was an only child but then there was an episode that occurred at the doctor’s office when she talked to her doctor about a sibling that was institutionalized when she was quite young. The author had never in his life heard of this sister of his mother. It wasn’t until his mother’s death that the secret came out. He started to research his mother’s family and uncovered the truth about the aunt who he never met. I thought this was quite an amazing story and thoroughly researched.
The Last Coyote –Michael Connelly – 3.5***
Book # 4 in the Harry Bosch series has our detective on ISL – Involuntary Stress Leave – after an “incident” involving an altercation with his supervising officer. This is a pretty dark episode in the series. But the reader gets to know much more about Harry and the way he operates, his background and what drives him. Despite the attention paid to his psychological problems, though, there is still a mystery to be solved with many clues, multiple suspects and enough twists and turns to keep any fan of thrillers interested and engaged.
LINK to my full review
Letters From Father Christmas – J R R Tolkien – 4****
This lovely volume duplicates the letters from Father Christmas which were sent to Tolkien’s children beginning in 1920 and continuing for the next twenty-three years. The letters relate the many adventures Father Christmas and his helpers – The North Polar Bear, elves, etc – have both in preparation for the big day and throughout the year. I much enjoyed the inventiveness of these missives and loved the hand-drawn illustrations.
LINK to my full review
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The Color of Lightning
Paulette Jiles
3.5/5 stars
Set in 1863 at the end of the Civil War, Jiles tells the story of Britt Johnson, a former slave whose is looking for his wife and children after an Indian raid and Samuel Hammond, a Quaker who works for the Office of Indian Affairs who is to educate the Native Americans (Kiowas) and try to change their lifestyles and incorporate them into living among the rest of the population. I have read at least one other of her books and found this one and her other one very well done!
The Heartbreak Bakery – A R Capetta – 3***
A teen who is unsure which pronouns to use displays feelings through baking. At the outset, I had some difficulty with the constantly changing pronouns – not just Syd but Harley and others seem unsure which pronouns they prefer on any given day. But I got over this and began to enjoy this YA romance. Syd is a great character, and I liked how Capetta explored relationships and changing feelings and how we need to learn to communicate openly and honestly.
LINK to my full review
Julie wrote: "The Color of Lightning
Paulette Jiles
3.5/5 stars..."
This was the first one by Jiles that I read. Nice review.
Mod
The Color of Lightning
Paulette Jiles
3.5/5 stars..."
This was the first one by Jiles that I read. Nice review."
I liked this one but I really liked her book News Of the World. I'll read more of her.
Say You Love Satan by David St. Clair3 stars
I revisited this several decades after it first came out. I remembered almost none of it other than Gary's death scene and the fact that there was not a single photo of the victim in the book. A sorry, depressing situation followed by a gobsmacker of a trial that kept this story from being just a reiteration of the TC movie RIVER'S EDGE. Well-written, albeit slightly odd in some ways. Did everyone in Long Island in the 1980s really call their weed "marijuana cigarettes"? The final analysis delivered by a welfare mom at the end of the book nailed the psychology of the situation perfectly. If you can find a copy it's well worth your time.
Mod
Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia
Natasha Lance Rogoff
4/5 stars
Rogoff tells her tale of working for Sesame Street in the 1990’s and trying to get the post- Soviet Russians to embrace a Russian Sesame Street to air in their country. I really enjoyed this book and the author does a nice job relating her time in Russia and the people she worked with.
Shroud For a Nightingale – P D James – 3***
Book 4 in the Adam Dalgliesh mystery series has the detective investigating two deaths at a school of nursing, Nightingale House. I really like how Dalgliesh is so methodical and contemplative. He never rushes to a conclusion, and carefully constructs and explores the possibilities before proclaiming a case is solved. This one took several turns I didn’t expect.
LINK to my full review
Holly Jolly Cowboy – Jessica Clare – 3***
Totally predictable, given the genre, but hey, there are cute dogs in abundance, not to mention that hunky cowboy. And, of course, perky, optimistic Holly will bake and cook her way into his heart. Will there be bumps in the road to romance? How could there not be? Will there be tears shed and hearts broken? Certainly. Will there be a happy ending? No doubt. This Holiday Cowboy Romance is enjoyable at any season.
LINK to my full review
The Burden of Proof – Scott Turow – 3.5***
Turow turns his attention to the defense attorney from Presumed Innocent , Alejandro “Sandy” Stern. It opens with a shocking discovery. And quickly expands to a complicated legal mess, involving securities / commodities trading, that frankly lost me in its complexity. I really loved how Turow wrote Sandy and his relationships. This is really more character-driven than most legal thrillers. But the plot complexities, however puzzling to me, were also what kept me interested and engaged and wondering and guessing right to the end … which is a stunner.
LINK to my full review
Born to Kill, by Glenn Shirley5 stars!
A very good, very tense, very concise read about the search for Billy Cook and the Mosser family that covered an enormous area of the USA and finally ended in Mexico. Gave a clear picture of what kind of person Billy Cook was and why he did what he did. The courtroom scenes focused on essentials and didn't belabor what we already knew about the case after following Cook all over the country in those hijacked cars. It would be hard to improve upon the writing quality. Well worth seeking out.
The Christmas Cookie Collection – Lori Wilde – 2**
I knew going into it that this collection of novellas (originally published separately) would be a schmaltzy romance. I’ve read another work by Wilde previously and liked it; I found this one charming for its genre, though unremarkable. It was a fast read, but I’ve basically forgotten the characters and their stories already.
LINK to my full review
Zombie Sharks with Metal Teeth, by Stephen Graham Jones3 stars
Several people described this to me as a novel so I was surprised to realize it was a short-story collection, and no, there is jo connection between the different stories except they are all very loopy. I enjoyed reading each one, but they are all so odd that the details won't stick in my mind properly. It's a quick read. Recommended.
End of Watch – Stephen King – 4****
Book three in the Bill Hodges Trilogy has the retired detective (now a private investigator) and his partner, Holly Gibney, intrigued by the recent murder / suicide involving a survivor the original Mercedes Killer rampage. King gives us a fast-paced, intricate plot, with complex characters, and a fascinating exploration into brain activity and the possibilities. I really like Bill Hodges, but I love Holly, and she really shines in this episode
LINK to my full review
Book Concierge wrote: "End of Watch
– Stephen King – 4****
Book three in the Bill Hodges Trilogy has the retired detective (now a private investigator) and his partner, Holly Gibney,..."
Be sure to check out Holly's turn in King's If It Bleeds!
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson3 stars
This is never going to be my favorite Larson read, but as with all of his books it was pretty good. Exhaustively researched, wide-ranging, and informative. At times very moving. I learned more than I ever expected to about the life of a sailor in a U-boat -- can't imagine why anyone would sign on for that! -- and a great deal about Woodrow Wilson's love life. I came away with a clear picture of how the sinking occurred and what it was probably like for the victims. Worth your time.
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Books mentioned in this topic
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (other topics)End of Watch (other topics)
If It Bleeds (other topics)
End of Watch (other topics)
Zombie Sharks With Metal Teeth (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Natasha Lance Rogoff (other topics)Paulette Jiles (other topics)
Paulette Jiles (other topics)
Paulette Jiles (other topics)
Steve Luxenberg (other topics)
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The American Association of Patriots Presents: How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety
Zachary Auburn
2/5 stars
I saw this book and thought that this might be quite funny but after a few pages it started to drag and the jokes got old. However, it was a short read so no harm, no foul.