When I wanted to turn real pages, I bought three hardbacks when they were first published. They have been stacked and acting as my stand to raise my laptop during zoom calls. Finally, I read them.
Mad Honey
Although this was a collaboration of two authors, the plot twist had Jodi Picoult’s fingerprints. If you are a fan, you will enjoy; if not, you will learn a lot about bees. Bees and honey are mixed with a murder trial and heavy notes on transgender issues. A happy ending with lessons learned and bias exposed.
Lady Clementine
Marie Benedict already has a new novel targeting the Mitford sisters, and as one of her fans, I’m not sure why it took me so long to read this one. Clementine Churchill is the focus of Lady Clementine, from her first meeting with Winston and his subsequent proposal at Blenheim Palace. Through two world wars, a changing Britain, and everything in between, Benedict reveals Clemmie’s feisty charm and intellect, as she navigates being Winston’s steadying influencer.
I always think of the British actress Dame Harriet Walter in her role as Lady Clementine in Downton Abbey, so an added perk of buying the hardback was the inside cover of Clemmie in her younger days.
The Boys From Biloxi by John Grisham
Grisham delivers this legal thriller with a long- winded introduction in Part 1, with the two childhood buddies winding up on opposite sides of the law. If you have the patience to read on into Part 2, the pace quickens and you will be rewarded with Grisham’s tense courtroom dramas.
Finished them all in a week. Now I need to find something else to read between commercials.
Jodi Picoult’s feud with best-selling author Jonathan Franzen kept me from her books. After her Small Great Things was recommended by two friends, I finally took on the author. Whether or not her work fits into the category of literary fiction, her book tackles an ugly reality and forces the reader into introspection. Her expected ending has a surprise twist, somehow forcing her message. Ruth, her main character, stays true to herself, and it’s the villain who reinvents himself.
Nina George’s The Little French Bistro weaves romance into a desperate struggle to escape. With the charm and beauty of a coastal village in Brittany as the setting, sixty year old Marianne casts aside her miserable forty years of marriage and begins again with a new attitude and a better connection. I missed reading George’s “The Little Paris Bookshop” – another book about new beginnings; reinvention seems to be her theme – what better place to reinvent yourself than Paris.
Kathleen Rooney’s Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk has a sophisticated Dorothy Parker literary aura, as the eighty-five year old New Yorker who lives in Murray Hill reminisces about milestones in her life on New Year’s Eve, 1984. The book is a series of vignettes as she revisits old haunts and recalls important moments in her life represented in restaurants, bars, parks, Penn Station, and Macy’s, where she worked for years as as advertising executive. The book was inspired by the real life of Margaret Fishback, poet and Macy’s ad-writing wonder of the 1930s. The neighborhoods have changed over the years as have the people, but Lillian remains curious and loyal, making new friends as she walks – the cop on the beat, the pregnant woman waiting outside the hospital, the store clerk who sells her an amaryllis bulb. In true New York style, she has also an encounter with three muggers. Anyone familiar with New York will recognize her – someone who needs no reinvention. Sprinkled within her reminiscences are lines from Margaret Fishback’s books of poetry.
The No Charge Book Bunch 