Tag: netgalley

The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill (Mystery)

Theodosia Benton abandons law school and her Australian home to focus on her unfinished novel, moving in with her brother in Lawrence, Kansas. A meeting with a successful author leads to mentorship, a free flow of ideas, and maybe something more … until he shows up dead one day, brutally murdered. Weird things keep happening and none of them are very good for our heroine, her brother Gus, and his investigator friend, Mac. Every time the author had a chance to go down the obvious path she instead takes evasive action and veers off onto a path I would never expect. Between the action and the backstories of her (very) relatable characters, we are treated to a twisted, entertaining, self-referential mystery blending writing techniques, reader psychology, conspiracy sites, preppers, and Tasmanian hippies (yes, you read that right). The situation does sometimes veer into regions of (to me) unrealistic evil corporate overlord action, but all of the other characters are believable and interesting — I particularly liked all the writerly discussions which focussed more on how to engage with a reader rather than dry (to the non writer) techniques. Be warned: a bit of a creepy feeling pervades the whole book, and I did feel that Theo should have figured some things out a little sooner than she did, but then I was in a comfy, stress-free space, so perhaps I wouldn’t have figured out very much more had I been in her position 🙂

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on March 19th, 2024.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Speculative Fiction)

Writing: 4.5 / 5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5

A surprisingly fun ride about the use of time travel to bring historical figures forward in time as part of a (very) complicated plot to ward off a severely climate damaged future. Our narrator (who I now realize is never given a name) is a civil servant who is offered an exciting new job as a “bridge” to one of these “expats from history.” A bridge’s function is to help the refugees from time accommodate to the present.

Our narrator is paired with Graham Gore — a Royal Navy officer and polar explorer from the early 19th century who is brought to the present just before his death as part of the ill fated 1845 Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage. (This is a real historical person and his character and experiences are faithfully drawn from historical records — look him up!). Four other “expats” include the unpleasant Lieutenant Thomas Cardingham from 1645; the lesbian Margaret Kemble from 1665 rescued from the Plague; a woman from Robespierre era Paris (1793); and the closeted homosexual Captain Arthur Reginald-Smythe extracted from the Battle of the Somme in 1916 (he wasn’t going to make it).

The plot is crazy, the characters are well-drawn and time-appropriate. I loved the interactions among all the possible permutations of expats and bridges with what felt like very real reactions and learning curves — most taking to technological advances more easily than the great shifts in social mores and expectations. I found the depth and believability of these interactions and the personal reflections fascinating. Plenty of insight (which I always love) and a great new phrase for me: “ethically sparse” to explain how our narrator felt about certain policies and decisions made by her corporate overlords in the Ministry.

Bradley is an excellent writer — her phrasing and comic overlays are top notch. I found the plot confusing at times — but it feels like this was somewhat intentional as the events were certainly confusing to the people living through them, and we are sharing their experience. Our narrator is part Cambodian, and another bridge is Black. Add to this our historical lesbian and homosexual characters, and there is plenty of opportunity for some pithy and insightful identity issues as well. She even managed to work a theremin (weird musical instrument — look it up) into the plot as well. Impressive!

Some fun Quotes (sorry there are so many but I couldn’t pick):

“I finally had a savings account that looked like it might withstand a life emergency rather than crumple at a dentistry bill.”

“All the emotions I normally watched her puree into professionalism were churning on her face.”

“This was one of my first lessons in how you make the future: moment by moment, you seal the doors of possibility behind you.”

“When Graham got online, as he did not call it, and learned to peck at the keyboard with the elegance and speed of a badly burned amphibian …”

“But my mother never described herself as a refugee. It was a narrative imposition, along with ‘stateless’ and ‘survivor’.”

‘Stop hand-wringing,’ said Simellia, still smiling, though increasingly looking as if the smile was being operated by winches inside her skill. ‘God, Ministry bias training has a lot to answer for,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to drop a piano on your head but believe it or not, I already know I’m Black. You don’t have to roll over and show me your belly about it.’

“It was another dank toothache of a day, barely qualifying in its chromatic dullness for ‘grey‘.”

“Quentin treated me with an impatient familiarity, as if we were both were leaving streaks on one another.”

“We settled back, if ‘settle’ is the right word for the stiff, wary way we offset one another’s weight on the cushions.”

“That night, I slept with unpleasant lightness, my brain balanced on unconsciousness like an insect’s foot on the meniscus of a pond. I didn’t so much wake up as give up on sleep.”

“We separated and spent the fading day bobbing shyly around one another like clots in a lava lamp.”

“I launched into a preplanned speech about class mobility and domestic labor, touching on the minimum wage, the size of an average household, and women in the workforce. I took a full five minutes of talking and by the end I’d moved into the same tremulous liquid register I used to use for pleading with my parents for a curfew extension.”

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on May 7th, 2024.

The Lost Girls of Penzance by Sally Rigby Mystery)

Writing: 3/5 Plot: 3.5/5 Characters 4/5

My first Sally Rigby novel. DI Lauren Pengelly is two years into her job on the Penzance police force when bones are discovered on a nearby farm. Not an area with a great deal of crime, Pengelly and crew are taken by surprise when a three year old girl disappears from a local day care center later that same afternoon. And thus begins the mystery novel that is sure to be the first in a series. Pengelly is a female version of the crusty old detective and her brand new sidekick — Matt Price — has an engaging backstory and personality that nicely support her. Vera Stanhope and her (two) trusty sidekicks come to mind.

Parts of the story were a little stressful for me — I don’t like to read about bad things happening to children so I’m going to give a little spoiler here to say that the children are OK by the end without giving away anything else in the plot. This is something I would have liked to know before reading. Plot is a little slow but gets good by the end. I like the characters and I feel like the author left room for future character development.

Thank you to Storm Publishing and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on October 5th, 2023.

The Secret Recipe of Ella Dove (Women’s Fiction)

Number three in the Dove Pond Series, each following the fortunes of one of the seven (somewhat magical) Dove sisters. Book one featured the youngest, Sarah, who can always tell exactly which book a person needs to read; book two focuses on Ava, second youngest, who brews a set of specialty teas that can induce calm, sleep, or romance; and this book introduces Ella, third youngest, who is a social media star baker whose products stimulate the recall of cherished memories in the consumer. It’s warm and uplifting chick lit with some very genuine, sweet scenes; good messaging around communication and facing your difficulties; and the requisite seriously good guy love interest. Nobody is perfect, which I appreciate, but regardless of some of their more negative attributes, they all want to be good people and all are trying their hardest to protect their loved ones, even if that isn’t always the best strategy! I’ve really lost interest in the new pile of books that are about very broken people who don’t always seem to manage to grow into decent human beings during the arc of the story. This book made me feel cheerful…

Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on August 15th, 2023.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks (Non-fiction)

David Brooks dives into a study of how to really “know” another person in this part academic, part how-to, deeply reflective book. Some parts really appeal to me — I like the funny, tongue-in-cheek, self deprecating style and the curating and restating of academic studies supporting his points. He has several ideas that I resonate with (I, too, was not born with copious social skills and had to work hard to learn the few I developed!), but many that I did not. Honestly, it reads as a journey of self-discovery with an implied (and sometimes boldly stated) assumption that his issues / goals / discoveries are relevant for everyone as in “everyone wants x” and “everyone needs y.” I don’t actually believe anything is true of everyone (except the fact that I assume we all have human DNA). Also, for my taste, he goes a little far in the (IMHO simplistic and kind of old news) “everyone just wants to be heard, valued, and understood,” and I think human interaction is a lot more complicated than that.

In any case, it is an interesting read, with plenty of tools to help each of us understand a little more about how we work and how we interact with others, so I think it is worth reading! Includes an exceptional referenced bibliography featuring philosophers, psychologists, novelists, and poets across the ages.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on October 24th, 2023.

Bessie by Linda Kass (Fictionalized History)

Writing: 3.5/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 4/5

This is the fictionalized story of Bess Myerson — the first Jewish Miss America, winning the prize in 1945. The author chose to focus the book on her early life — her upbringing, experiences in the Bronx (where the family had moved from the Lower East side for the trees, parks, and fresh air!), and her moral development. The book follows her story in a primarily linear fashion, culminating in an appearance at Carnegie Hall at the end of her year as Miss America. The epilogue goes on to summarize the rest of her professional life on TV and in public government and her personal life (I’ll let you read that in the epilogue so I don’t spoil the story).

What I loved in the book was the description of the Jewish community life in the Sholom Aleichem Housing complex (open to Jews when most were not). Her entire extended family lived in the 200 apartments across 15 buildings. The community was full of musicians and artists and though her family was by no means well-off, she was given piano lessons from an early age and as pushed to excel. That is the Jewish culture in which I was raised — not one of religion but of art, music, and study! — and I love reading biographies and stories that percolated out of Jewish New York City in that time period (check out any Marx Brother biography for an even wilder, but somewhat similar, ride).

What I didn’t love about the book was the level of fictionalization. I’m not a fan of fictionalizing real people when dialog and thoughts are created when none actually occur. The author does a good job of summarizing what she made up vs what was real at the end of the book, but for my taste she made up too much — she added in scenes that she felt could have happened based on her deep understanding of the character and that is her prerogative, but I really like to keep my fact and fiction separated. I can honestly say that I doubt this will bother anybody else — I seem to be the only person who likes to keep the line between fact and fiction solid and thick!

Thank you to She Writes Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 12th, 2023

The Lady from Burma by Allison Montclair (Historical Mystery)

This is book five of the historical mystery series starring Iris Sparks (with a possible dangerous past) and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge (an aristocratic war widow with a young son who is fighting for her rights in Lunacy Court!). Together they run the Right Sort Marriage Bureau in post WWII London, but they simultaneously seem to be in just the right place to solve murders, much to the chagrin (and eventual admiration) of the local police.

While this is book five in the series, it’s book one for me. I was able to keep up just fine but I do feel a lot must have happened in the previous books. I can’t tell how much progress was made in the personal situations for both women before this story — may be better to start at book one!

In this book, they get an unusual client. A woman dying of cancer comes in to line up a wife for her husband after her passing. Unfortunately, that passing happens more quickly than expected. Simultaneously, the very conservator who has been holding Mrs. Bainbridge hostage during her fight with the Lunacy Court has also turned up dead. The body count steadily increasing only seems to stimulate the interest of the two women.

The plot kept my interest, and I enjoyed learning about various procedures / processes in that (still rather unfriendly to women) time period. The writing was a little stilted for my taste, but overall I enjoyed it.

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on July 25th, 2023

Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan (Women’s Fiction)

Another light and uplifting story from Jenny Colgan. Women’s Fiction with humor and wit taking up more space than the actual romance (the romance honestly felt kind of secondary here which was fine with me ). A sequel to The Christmas Bookshop: bookstore manager Carmen Hogan deals with an obnoxious millionaire anxious to turn the lovely street into a tacky Souvenir Row, getting booted out of her sister’s lovely home to make room for a charming, one-armed manny, and her own pining for the love of her life whom she somehow scared off to the wilds of the Brazilian jungle.
Great banter, ridiculous and yet utterly believable plot twists, and characters that are interesting and yet normal at the same time because people actually are interesting if you go just the tiniest bit below the stereotype. Lots of fun to read.

Thank you to Avon Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on October 10th, 2023

Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health by Anupam B. Jena; Christopher Worsham

Random Acts of Medicine is a Malcolm Gladwell style book applied to health care systems. The authors — both physicians and public health researchers at Harvard Medical School — propose to explore the “hidden, but predictable ways in which chance affects our health and our healthcare system” through the use of “Natural Experiments,” that is observational studies that make use of naturally occurring differences in the world and measuring the impact. The two (along with colleagues) have used the approach to explore and answer a number of questions such as: does stress really age you? How does the month of a child’s birth impact their health and life success? What happens when all the cardiologists leave town? How does a marathon impact our health? Does your doctor’s politics affect the care they give? For each question (and there are many, many, more than the ones I have listed), the authors carefully explain the natural experiment, the sources of data, results, and what use can be made of the results (possible policy changes, or greater awareness of our own biases at work).

I found the book got better (more interesting to me) as it went on. The authors are careful not to assume that the reader knows anything about natural experiments, statistics, counterfactuals, etc. and they explain the (possibly new) concepts carefully, but not tediously. Still, if you are already familiar with the concepts it can get a little dull and I enjoyed all the actual experiments (many with surprising results) more than the introduction.

An easy read full of fun “I never thought about that” insights. Plenty of notes and references for those who want to investigate further. I always appreciate the kind of “popularized” topic books when they actually show their work, clearly separating them from the whopping pile of self help books that make claims without an iota of scientific support.

Thank you to Doubleday and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on July 11th, 2023

Road to Surrender by Evan Thomas (Non-Fiction — History)

Writing: 5/5 Topic Coverage: 5/5 References: 5/5

My favorite kind of non-fiction — all well-referenced facts, with details of people’s thoughts, motivations, and actions as captured at the time through records, diaries, and notes. The book covers the day-to-day (and sometime minute-to-minute) events pertaining to the dropping of two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — not the development of the bombs which is well covered elsewhere, but everything to do with the (somewhat chaotic) logistics, strategy, political machinations, and even the evolution of revisionist history to do with the use of the bombs. Drawing heavily from memoirs of several of the key players, including Japanese foreign minister Togo, we are treated to the decision making process with all of the attendant, intermingled motivations and fears of the time.

The writing was superb — clean, clear, and detailed, but never rambling. I don’t tend to read non-fiction unless it’s like this (and very few books are!). The action ranges from March – August 1945, with a well-summarized epilogue that followed some of the main characters (Stimson, Togo, Spaatz) to the end of their lives amidst shifting popular perceptions of the war and the US role in ending it. In many ways, I found this chapter the most interesting — watching the way history gets retold when the stress of an uncontrollable situation is gone and the pontificators get to revise strategy with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight. Towards the end of this period, there is also the scepter of the Russians — allies at the time, but allies who are starting to behave in a not-so-collegial fashion. To trust or not to trust? (I think the answer to this one is now pretty clear).

Of the many character portraits painted, three stood out: Henry Stimson — Secretary of War whose ongoing worry was that “man’s technical capacity to do evil will outrun man’s human capacity to do good;” Carl “Tooey” Spaatz — the Commander of the Strategic Air Forces who insisted on written orders to deploy the bomb(s) and carried the orders around in his pocket; and Shigenori Togo —the only Japanese Cabinet member to oppose the war (and the only one not executed as a War Criminal). I loved the peek into the minds of the men (yes, they were all men) making the decisions — what they worried about, what information they had at their disposal, and how their insights and opinions were informed by their individual backgrounds and levels of idealism and pragmatism.

A significant portion of the book exposed the (wildly different) decision making process in Japan, which resulted in the much delayed surrender. The emperor was largely a prisoner of an increasingly fanatic military and rarely challenged their usually unanimous recommendations. Additionally, the Japanese culture at the time valued consensus and information transmission that is expected to be implicit, rather than explicit, greatly hampering any kind of rapid and rational decision making. Ultimately Emperor Hirohito did issue a proclamation of surrender, but even that was almost quashed through a last minute and desperate coup. Honestly, it reads like absolute insanity, which I’m sure it was.

I honestly couldn’t stop reading. The last paragraph summed it up nicely: “It is hard to imagine the pressure that these men faced in the spring and summer of 1945. The surrender of Japan came at a high cost. Decision makers on both sides engaged in wishful thinking and psychological denial, and peace of mind was hard for the victors to find. But Japan did surrender before hundreds of thousands — possibly millions — more lives were lost. Stimson, Spaatz, and Togo gave mightily of themselves to bring peace, and at last they succeeded.”

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on May 16th, 2023