September Book Releases: Find a Comfy Chair

September 2018

The Frangipani Tree by Ovidia Yu (Sept. 4^th, print edition, Kindle is already out)

Cross Her Heart: A Novel by Sarah Pinborough (Sept. 4^th)

In Her Bones: A Novel by Kate Moretti (Sept. 4^th)

Solemn Graves (Billy Boyle WWII Mystery, #13) by James R. Benn (Sept. 4^th)

The Man Who Came Upton by George Pelecanos (Sept. 4^th)

An Act of Villany: An Amory Ames Mystery by Ashley Weaver (Sept. 4^th)

Gallows Court by Martin Edwards (Sept. 6^th)

Juror #3 by James Patterson and Nancy Allen (Sept. 10^th)

A Borrowing of Bones: A Mystery by Paula Munier (Sept. 11^th)

Hitting the Books (A Library Lover’s Mystery, #9) by Jenn McKinlay (Sept. 11^th)

Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit (A Kopp Sisters Novel) by Amy Stewart (Sept. 11^th)

Read and Gone: A Haunted Library Mystery by Allison Brook (Sept. 11^th)

Burning Ridge (Timber Creed K-9 Mystery, #4) by Margaret Mizushima (Sept. 11^th)

Lethal White (Cormoran Strike) by Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling (Sept. 18^th)

Button Man by Andrew Gross (Sept. 18^th)

Bess Crawford #10  (Sept. 18^th)

Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness (Sept. 18^th)

Peace, Love, Goats of Anarchy: How My Little Goats Taught Me Huge Lessons about Life by Leanne Lauricella (Sept. 18^th)

The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (Sept. 18^th, was out in UK in Feb. as The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle)

A Willing Murder (A Medlar Mystery) by Jude Deveraux (Sept. 18^th)

The Labyrinth of the Spirits (Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #4) by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Sept. 18^th)

Transcription: A Novel by Kate Atkinson (Sept. 25^th)

Treacherous is the Night (A Verity Kent Mystery, #2) by Anna Lee Huber (Sept. 25^th)

Squirm by Carl Hiaasen (Children’s Book) (Sept. 25^th)

Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding by Rhys Bowen: Reading Room Review

Her Royal Spyness series by Rhys Bown is one of my favorites. Sometimes you just need a read that is always fun, full of adventure, peopled by outrageously wonderful characters, and constant with witty conversations. And, having been a fan for so long of Lady Georgie and watching her character gaining firmer footing in her world, I am thrilled that the series has come to the point of this book, Georgie and Darcy set to wed and live happily ever after. Well, readers of this series know that wedding or no, there will be bumps in the road ahead for Lady Georgie, as her path is seldom an easy one. But, Lady Georgie has arrived at a maturity and competency level that serves her well in Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding. There can still be a thin line between fearless and fool hearty, but Lady Georgie is starting to take charge and become her own person. Rhys Bowen has developed Georgie's character beautifully, as well as giving us so many other characters in this series to enjoy.

At last, Lady Georgiana Rannoch is planning for her wedding to Darcy O'Mara, and she is faced with doing so in her usual penniless condition. Staying at her and Darcy's friend Princes Zou Zou's house in London, the details begin to come together and work out, as they usually do for Georgie. Her friend Belinda is making her wedding dress, and her brother Binky and his wife Fig have agreed to have the reception for her at Rannoch House in London. Of course, Georgie's sister-in-law Fig could hardly refuse to host the reception after Queen Mary invites herself and the King and other royals to the wedding, as well as offering the two princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, to be bridesmaids. Even Georgie's mother offers to buy her daughter a trousseau. So, while the wedding plans seem to be under control, Georgie and Darcy are faced with one unavoidable problem. Where will they live after they marry? Even this sticking point falls into place when Georgie receives a letter from her former stepfather, Sir Hubert Anstruther, inviting her to make his country estate Eynsleigh her and Darcy's permanent home. Sir Hubert, who continues to be absent from the home due to his mountain climbing adventures, had already made Georgie his heir to his fortune.

Georgie leaves London for Eynsleigh to ready it for occupancy after the wedding. With fond memories of the country estate's grounds and luxurious accommodations, Georgie is shocked at the condition of house's interior and grounds when she arrives. Then, upon meeting the butler, other household staff, and gardeners, she is appalled at their lack of competency and proper behavior towards her. She soon learns that the entire staff is new, with the old staff let go without explanation when the new butler arrived. Something is rotten in Denmark, but Georgie doesn't yet have the authority to fire anyone and must instead try to determine what is going on. She's glad to have the company of her mother, who accepts Georgie's invitation to visit, when the German industrialist her mother was engaged to breaks off the engagement. As Darcy is away on another of his "secret" missions for the government, it's up to Georgie to set things right at Eynsleigh. Georgie is willing and able to step up to the plate in asserting her control as Mistress of Eynsleigh, but she keeps discovering more and more dark happenings at the estate, and her fight to restore the beloved estate becomes a dangerous undertaking. It's indeed a dire situation when the arrival of Queenie, Georgie's maid and now cook-in-training, signals a positive note. If Georgie can't uncover the quickly deteriorating cause of Eynsleigh's stature, the home she so happily anticipated and the wedding she has so carefully planned may go up in smoke.

Trust Me by Hank Phillippi Ryan: Reading Room Reviw

For those of us who remember the 1974 film Chinatown starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, there is an unforgettable scene in this noir mystery movie where Nicolson’s character is asking Dunaway’s character about the identity of a young woman. While getting angrier and angrier, Nicholson demands the truth and Dunaway alternates between his slaps saying, “my daughter, my sister, my daughter, my sister.” And, as it turns out, both are true, as the truth is often a slippery mesh of realities. In Hank Phillippi Ryan’s new book Trust Me, who to trust as the teller of truth is just as much of a twisted road as Faye Dunaway’s revelation, and its revelation is just as surprising. As that movie scene is unforgettable, so is Ryan’s Trust Me. And, Trust Me is a story that would and quite probably will make a thrilling movie, too, following in the footsteps of recent other best selling (yes, of course it will be a best seller) books, such as Gone Girl or Girl on a Train. It’s just that compelling, actually more compelling for me than either of those. Ryan’s previous novels have all been favorite reads, but Trust Me is the rocket that shoots for the moon and solidly sticks a most memorable landing. 

Life has been a matter of bare existence for Mercer Hennessy since the death of her husband Dex and three-year-old daughter Sophie in a tragic car accident fourteen months ago. Each day begins with Mercer writing the number of days her family has been gone on the steamed mirror after her shower. It keeps her connected to them in her mind and heart, like a promise that no matter how many days pass, she will always love and remember them. The enormity of her grief is on display throughout the book, with her thoughts of her husband never giving her another gift as she holds a rock he gave her and of Sophie never turning four. The pain is palatable, and Ryan makes it so through her brilliantly written words. 

Still in mourning for the family and life she loved, Mercer desperately needs something to get up for each morning, besides her counting ritual in the mirror. That something comes in connection to another tragedy. “Baby Boston” was the name given to an unidentified toddler found dead in a garbage bag on the shores of Boston Harbor. After identification was made, the mother of the child is now on trial for two-year old Tasha Nicole’s murder. Mercer has been keeping up with the case and is enraged at the actions of the mother, Ashlyn Bryant, whom Mercer knows is guilty. So, when Mercer’s friend and editor Katherine Craft calls proposing and cajoling that Mercer write a narrative non-fiction book, like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, about the trial and the murder, it seems an important and worthwhile endeavor as a tribute “to every little girl unfairly wrenched away from the world,” including her Sophie. Mercer agrees to watch the trial remotely from a feed set up in her home and to the quick deadline of having the book finished two weeks after the trial closes. The feeling that the book is somehow for her husband and daughter fuels her energy to work and show the guilt of the monster mother Ashlynn.

It’s a lonely, solitary existence in watching the trial on the special equipment Katherine has supplied instead of attending the court sessions, but Mercer prefers it that way. Waiting for each session to start a male voice from the broadcast announces how long it will be until court is in session and information about delays. Mercer latches onto this voice, “the voice,” as a sort of companion in her solitude. She appreciates that it even seems to have a personality and a sense of humor. It is a steadying force for the gruesome details that she is faced with during the trial. It’s up to the prosecuting attorney to get the jury to trust him and the state’s version of what happened, and Mercer thinks the prosecutor is doing a good job of that. Mercer’s writing is going well, and she is sure that people won’t soon forget the mother who killed her own child. In fact, Mercer’s book will ensure that Ashlyn Bryant lives in infamy.

But, Mercer discovers that Ashlyn Bryant and the truth are more complicated than a simple verdict can convey. The two mothers who have both lost their young daughters will become entangled in a high stakes game of gaining the other’s trust so that the truth can come out. Nothing could have prepared Mercer for this aftermath of the trial. Everything she believed and believes about her life is turned upside down, as she learns that truth manipulated for any reason, good or bad, is truth denied. Trying to discern what is manipulation and what you can trust will prove a psychological battle that will cost one woman the place in the world she thought as hers.

Ryan’s ability to create complex, interesting characters is quite evident in all her novels, but in Trust Me, she reaches a bit beyond the norm of characters by including the understated “voice.” “The voice” adds an unbiased touch of relief humor and calm. Trust Me is chock full of great characters, and while you might not like Ashlyn, you will be riveted by her complexity of story. Since Mercer Hennessey is the lone narrator, it is through her interpretation of the truth we come to know the other characters, and her doubts and fears become the reader’s. The mantra of “trust me” runs throughout the book, different characters asking another one to “trust me” that I am the bearer of the truth, and Mercer certainly is confronted with that phrase from characters with different agendas. How often we hear that phrase in life, a promise that what has been said is the absolute truth. But is there an absolute truth? As Mercer reflects, “Maybe we never know that truth, since it’s so inescapably transformed by our own point of view.” 

I was fortunate to receive an advanced reading copy of this book from Hank Phillippi Ryan, but you can “trust me” that I’ll be buying a hard copy, too.

Lost Luggage by Wendall Thomas: Reading Room Review

This debut novel is a breath of fresh air in a world gone mad. I enjoyed smiling and laughing at the adventures/misadventures of Cyd Redondo so much. There are characters that one falls in love with immediately, and Cyd is such a character. She has a knack for bargains and smart deals, the ability to live with an extended family who is overprotective, and the compassion to take care of those she loves and serves. I always appreciate clever with humor, and Wendall Thomas achieves that not only in the witty dialogue, but the mishaps and situations that Cyd experiences are so hilariously unique to anything else I’ve read that I applaud the outstanding creativity of this story. Lost Luggage is Thompson’s first novel, and she already has a tight grasp on dialogue, plot, and characters. Cyd is, of course, the main character and has my vote for one of the best new characters in mystery/crime, but there are other great characters in this wonderfully bizarre book whom the author delights the reader with, from Brooklyn to Tanzania. And, talk about setting. The close Brooklyn community in which Cyd has spent her whole 32 years is a comfort place for sure, and when we get to Africa, the world opens up for the reader as well as for Cyd.

“Hi, I’m Cyd Redondo, Redondo Travel” is Cyd Redondo’s calling card when she meets someone, as she is always promoting her family business. She has spent her 32 years with her extended family, living with them and working with them. She is a travel agent who has not traveled outside her immediate Brooklyn neighborhood, but she is good at her job nonetheless. When Cyd has a chance to travel to Tanzania, Africa in a travel agent contest, she decides it’s time for her to get some miles under her passport. It’s also time to get away from the bad business in the pet shop next door to the Redondo Travel Agency, that of one dead octogenarian named Mrs. Barsky, mysteriously murdered after a couple of break-ins occur. Add in the bonus of Mrs. Barsky’s son living in Africa and needing to be notified of his mother’s death, and the trip seems meant to be.

Going against her Uncle Ray’s wishes, Cyd attends a travel agents’ convention in Atlantic City to try and boost her bookings for the Tanzania trip. She is determined to book enough trips to win a trip there for herself, and she’s already tapped out most of the Brooklyn senior citizens her uncle’s agency specializes in. She doesn’t have much luck in the trip prospects at the conference, but she does meet a romantic prospect, who comes to her aid when she is having words with a particularly annoying travel agent, who is also from her Brooklyn territory. And, as luck would have it, Roger shows up at her house where the extended family of Redondos live, just as the Tanzania trip falls into her lap from enough bookings. Uncle Ray wants to cash in the trip, but Cyd has worked too hard to be denied this reward, so she grabs Roger as her plus-one for the trip and makes her escape.

Upon arrival in Tanzania, and after being informed her luggage has been lost, Cyd is shocked to learn that two of her senior citizen clients are in jail. It may be the first foreign country Cyd has ever been to, besides New Jersey, but this is one travel agent with who knows how to connect with the people she serves and adapt to resources available. It’s not easy, but Cyd manages to spring the couple from jail only to learn before their departure that animal smugglers have targeted the older couple’s luggage for carrying their contraband of baby turtles, parrots, snakes, and poison frogs. So starts Cyd’s introduction to the ugly side of exotic animals and their illegal entry into the United States. As problems seem to keep adding up and Cyd and Roger get deeper into the dangerous world of illegal trade, Cyd begins to wonder if the country she couldn’t wait to get to is ever going to let her go.

Wendall Thomas has created a laugh a minute tale that still manages to touch upon a serious subject. It’s said that a comedian depends upon timing for a successful joke. Well, Thomas has mastered the timing for Cyd’s misadventures, giving readers a delightful journey through the wilds of Tanzania in Cyd Redondo style. I can hardly wait to see what comes next for this plucky travel agent/amateur sleuth.

August New Releases: Summer Continues to Sizzle

I have been able to keep ahead of some of the new releases of August through ARCs, advanced reader copies, but it's still a challenge with so many amazing titles arriving in this final month of summer.  Here are my top baker's dozen that I've read or hope to read from the riches of new publications, with their publication dates and cover pictures.  

August 2018

The Deepest Grave: A Medieval Noir Mystery (A Crispin Guest Medieval Noir Mystery) by Jeri Westerson (Aug. 1^st)

Last Seen Leaving by Catherine Lea (Aug. 4^th)

Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding (Her Royal Spyness) by Rhys Bowen  (Aug. 7^th)

Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day (Aug. 7^th)

The Prisoner in the Castle (Maggie Hope Mystery) by Susan Elia MacNeal (Aug. 7^th)

Death on the Menu (Haley Snow, Key West Food Critic mystery) by Lucy Burdette  (Aug. 7^th)

An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena (Aug. 7^th)

Hollywood Ending (Dayna Anderson #2) by Kellye Garrett (Aug. 8^th)

Root of all Evil (A Laurel Highlands Mystery, Book 1) by Liz Milliron (Aug. 14th)

Taste of Vengeance: A Gia Santella Thriller and Sydney Rye Mystery by Kristi Belcamino (Aug. 16^th, Kindle)

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter (Aug. 21^st)

Desolation Mountain: A Novel (Cork O’Connor Mystery Series) by William Kent Krueger (Aug. 21^st)

Trust Me by Hank Phillippi Ryan  (Aug. 28^th)

The Mystery of Three Quarters: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery by Sophie Hannah (Aug. 28^th)

The Prisoner in the Castle by Susan Elia MacNeal: Reading Room Review

The Prisoner in the Castle is the eighth book in the Maggie Hope historical mystery series, set during WWII in Great Britain, and it is a thrilling tale of suspenseful trepidation. The author’s tight control of the tension and plot allows a myriad of possibilities to engage the reader while avoiding frustration. It is a story that keeps the reader on the edge of her/his seat and turning the pages as quickly as possible to find out who the cat among the pigeons is. The cast of characters that MacNeal introduces to this plot are fascinating, and each is a viable suspect in an escalating sequence of murdering off British SOE agents one by one in a secluded location. The suspects, victims, and killer are all gathered in one inescapable place, and anyone seems to be a target for death, as the killer remains hidden in plain sight. If you aren’t already thinking about Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None yet, you will be when you read MacNeal’s cleverly spun rendition. 

Our favorite spy, Maggie Hope, is one among a handful of British SOE (Special Operations Executive) agents who have been sent to Scarra Island, off the coast of western Scotland, because they have been deemed in possession of too much information or have made a move of some sort that steer a select few in charge to determine the agents too high of a risk to continue to serve or keep amongst the general population. The island is uninhabited except for the prisoners and the housekeeping staff, a husband, wife, and son originally residents of the island before the island was bought by a peculiar English lord, who wanted no one on the island but whom he invited. Sir Marcus Killoch has been dead for some time, and the British government has taken over the island and Killoch Castle to use as a “cooler” for the agents labeled too hot to be on the loose. Although not restricted to the castle and allowed to roam the island, there is no mistaking that the agents are prisoners. Maggie is both infuriated and frustrated, as she hasn’t done anything wrong, and would take the information she knows about D-Day to her grave. She has effectively been taken out of the action in 1942 during a time Great Britain could use all the highly trained SOE agents it has to undercut Hitler’s advances. No one knows where Maggie or her fellow prisoners are, except for a few well-placed officers in the SOE operation, including Colonel Alistair Rogers at Arisaig House, a former Scottish hunting lodge being used as the training site for British SOE agents, and Colonel Gaskell with F-Section in London.  Although no one knows her location, there are those looking for her, notably Chief Detective Inspector James Durgin, who unexpectedly may need her for the trial of the notorious Blackout Beast, from a previous Maggie Hope story, The Queen's Accomplice.  There is no means of escape from the island, as the only boat visits the island once a month with supplies and then returns to the mainland. It is a wilderness of three square miles, and someone on it is not who he/she claims to be.

WWII was a war fought on many levels, and spies were an integral part of the effort, by both sides. The spies who occupy Scarra Island are all well-trained in subterfuge and combat skills, so when the SOE agents start being murdered one by one, Maggie knows that anyone of them is capable of the acts. But, motive is the bugger. Who among them has the motive to remove all the others from play? The methods of the murders are as varied as the victims, and if Maggie can’t discover the why, the who might be impossible to crack, too. While Maggie is able to gain access to the castle’s radio connection to the mainland, hope of outside help is dashed when a storm unleashes its fury on the island, making rescue impossible. It’s complete isolation at its most intense, and it’s up to Maggie to use any and all her training to uncover a master of deception and death.

So many aspects of this novel reveal Susan Elia MacNeal’s talent as a master of enthralling storytelling. As the setting is on an island in the sea, I can’t help thinking of a comparison between a wily fisherman controlling his fishing line, reeling it out and back in at just the right moments, the twisting and turning of the line, and the revelation of the prize fish when the dance is over. MacNeal controls the story just as tightly, and as patiently. Nothing is rushed, although the action is always moving forward. The characters are deftly developed from their first innocuous appearance to the depths of their bared souls. The setting in its perfect closed room isolation is described by MacNeal, from the wilds and beauty of the island to the cold, calculating architecture of the castle in detail adding to the action, not unnecessary color.  The historical research that the author conducts for this series clinches the authenticity element.  The reader is fully engaged in the story from the chilling prologue to the unnerving ending. Prepare to be impressed. 

I received an ARC of this book and in return have given my honest review of it.

Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day: Reading Room Review

The phrase “off the chain” is a term often used to describe something fantastically good, and so it is in that sense that I say Under a Dark Sky is off the chain. However, the chain runs smooth with the structure and flow of Lori Rader-Day’s brilliant writing. She has everything under control, even the missteps the readers make in assigning guilt to the wrong characters. It’s a dark tale played out in a dark park, a locked room environment with a guest house full of troubled lives.  Oh, and the main character has a phobia about the dark. 

Life for thirty-something Eden Wallace has been a nightmare since the recent death of her husband, or it would be a nightmare if she could sleep and she didn’t spend the night with lights blazing all over her house. Afraid of the dark doesn’t quite cover the paralyzing phobia that Eden has, unable to step foot outdoors from nightfall until daybreak. Realizing that she is far too young to become a recluse, Eden makes a decision contradictory to her phobia. Upon finding paperwork in her husband’s desk where he had reserved a vacation at Straits Point International Dark Sky Park in Michigan, Eden steels herself to go to this place where lights are kept to a bare minimum and stars are the only lights of attraction. She feels she might actually find some solace and strength from a change of scenery in a retreat by herself, and her husband, Bix, did plan it to coincide with their 10th wedding anniversary. But, just about everything she thinks this trip will be is turned on its head from the moment she arrives at the reserved guest house. She has only a suite in the house and must share the rest of the house with a group of twenty-something strangers who are coming together for a college reunion of sorts. Not wanting to stay with arrangements as they are, but with night getting close to falling, Eden knows she is stuck for one night where she is. One night with all the lights in her room on and leaving the next day seems an option she will have to live with. 

And then there is someone dead on the kitchen floor with a screwdriver stuck in the throat. No one is going anywhere right away. Everyone is a suspect, including Eden, and the secret of her phobia and her marriage and her husband’s death make their way to the surface. But, she isn’t the only one with secrets. The six friends all seem to have different agendas for the reunion and different issues from the past to resolve. And, there is the ghost of a past friend the six share. This locked room is a Pandora’s box of ills, including jealousy, greed, lying, and revenge. No one is innocent and, thus, everyone is guilty, at least of some regrettable sin.  Who is the killer, what is her/his motive, and are the ensuing accidents that follow the murder really accidents?  The local law enforcement is ill equipped to solve a murder, and Eden feels compelled to do some investigating on her own, as the answers mean clearing her name and possibly saving lives, including her own.  It’s clear that the retreat Eden had hoped would revive her life will change it in ways she never saw coming.

Lori Rader-Day hit the ground running with her first book, the Anthony Award winning The Black Hour, and her next two books, Little Pretty Things and The Day I Died won awards and nominations and placement on “best” lists, too. Her storytelling and writing talents won me over at the beginning. Her stories are always uniquely interesting, no trace of having read this set-up before. But, I think that with Under a Dark Sky, she has achieved a stellar status that will catapult her into the highest stratosphere of fame. The