Flying at Night ~ Rebecca L. Brown (Published April 10, 2018)

Brown, Rebecca L. 2018. Flying at Night. New York, NY: Berkley Publishing Group.
ISBN: 978-0399585999. $26.00 USD.

Rebecca L Brown's debut, Flying at Night, is one of my favorite books so far this year.  It took me a bit to get through it because I had to stop and ponder some things while reading.  The author has given amazing voices to the three main characters: Piper, her autistic son, Fred, and her father, Lance.  I felt like I knew each of these characters intimately by the time I was finished, and was fully invested in their lives and the outcomes of their situations.

Piper is an artist who has chosen to stay home with her son, Fred, who is showing signs of being on the autism scale.  She is very much in denial about it.  Fred's voice in his entries in the book are written in such a way that the reader knows he has some kind of disorder, but they are so funny and wise and filled with his personality that one cannot help but love this character and hope for the best for him.  Piper's husband, Isaac, is a lawyer for The Innocence Project and is away from home a lot working, so Piper feels like she is handling Fred's challenges as if she were a single parent.

In the midst of her issues with Fred, Piper's father suffers a heart attack while playing squash, and is without oxygen for so long that no one thinks he will recover.  Lance was a pilot nick-named "The Silver Eagle," and though charming, he had a huge ego. We come to understand through his voice and Piper's descriptions, however, that Lance was a terrible father and husband, emotionally and verbally abusive.  No one is really all that interested in him surviving; but miraculously he does, and this has far reaching consequences for all of the family: for "The Silver Eagle" is a completely different man than he was before.

The beauty of this book is seeing how all of the characters handle the challenges that come their way, and getting into their hearts and minds in the chapters written from their points of view. All the characters in the book have opportunities for redemption in some way or another, and upon turning the last page, I just signed with pleasure. My heart was aching, but my soul was at peace.

This is a wonderful debut, and I highly recommend it. 5 stars!

Anti-Heroines Rock!!

I’ve read several books lately that have what I would classify as anti-heroines as protagonists. Anti-heroes have been around a long time in literature (the word was coined as early as the 1700s), and can be defined as central characters who lack conventional heroic attributes. Anti-heroes in novels usually have dark traits often associated with villains, such as amorality, violent tendencies and traits that blur the moral line between a protagonist and antagonist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihero). Anti-heroines seem to be becoming more prominent in novels lately.

The most famous anti-heroine in recent memory is Lisbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series (which starts with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). She’s mysterious, anti-social, violent at times and is morally ambivalent. She’s one of the most unusual female characters to come along and the series took the world by storm.

I've enjoyed three novels which have characters with anti-heroine attributes, so I thought I'd combine these books in one post.  I’ll be writing about Nola Brown in Brad Meltzer’s The Escape Artist, Alice Vega in Louisa Luna’s Two Girls Down, and Amanda Pharrell in Candice Fox’s Crimson Lake.




Meltzer, Brad. 2018. The Escape Artist. New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group. ISBN: 978-1538746783. $28.00 USD.

I had not read anything by Brad Meltzer before The Escape Artist, though he is a popular author with my library patrons. And I must say that I'm now a fan!  I had been seeing some buzz about one of the characters in his book (‘who is Nola Brown”), and  the plot sounded interesting. I am grateful to Grand Central Publishing for allowing me to read the novel before it was published.

Who is Nola Brown?  She is a mystery, she’s in trouble and she’s supposed to be dead.  In The Escape Artist, the main character is Jim "Zig" Zigarowski who works for the Army restoring the bodies of fallen soldiers before burial. (This is a real job, and the author did a lot of research about this noble profession before writing the book). Jim is told that there has been a plane crash, and there are military bodies arriving who will need his special skills.  One of the bodies turns out to be someone he knew many years ago who helped his daughter in a bad situation.  But Jim  knows something about Nola, and soon he realizes the body on his table is not actually her. His connection to Nola Brown causes him to investigate what actually happened to her, and that’s the basic plot of the book.

The character of Nola Brown is an anti-heroine because she doesn’t feel much for people, and frequently manipulates those around her to get what she wants. She also has lethal skills courtesy of the military and doesn’t seem to feel any remorse for her violent actions. She’s a sympathetic character in a lot of ways because the author gives us alternating chapters describing her horrific childhood. But she cannot be trusted, and puts people in harm’s way to achieve her goals. In the book, Jim keeps trying to help her, but gets in dangerous situations because of it. We are not sure Nola really cares about him at all, in spite of all the ways he tries to help her. Nola Brown is definitely one of the more interesting characters I’ve encountered recently, and the book tells a great story.


Luna, Louisa. 2018. Two Girls Down. New York, NY: Knopf/Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House. ISBN  978-038554249. $25.95 USD.

I also was able to read Two Girls Down pre-publication courtesy of Knopf/Doubleday and it's appreciated. In this novel, we are introduced to another anti-heroine, Alice Vega, an enigmatic bounty hunter who is hired by a family to find two missing girls. Alice has a reputation for being able to find missing children, but the reader is given very little information about her background.  She’s tough, anti-social, and needs very little sleep, but she manages to always get the job done. The police department in the town where the girls went missing is stretched thin by budget cuts, so Alice recruits a disgraced former cop named Max Caplan to help her. Their relationship is initially antagonistic, but they learn to respect each other and work toward a common goal.  This book is an excellent read, character driven and propulsive, like the best thrillers. It’s not graphically violent, but the language is pretty rough, which is the only negative thing I have to say about this excellent debut.



Fox, Candice. 2018. Crimson Lake. New York, NY: Forge, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers. ISBN: 978-0765398482. $25.99 USD.

Finally, another book with an interesting anti-heroine is Crimson Lake by Candice Fox.  I was able to read this one courtesy of Forge Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers.  I have read some excellent novels written by Australian authors lately, including The Dry and Force of Nature by Jane Harper.  Candice Fox is another Australian author, based in Sydney, and she has partnered with James Patterson in the U.S. in writing several books, including the recent Fifty, Fifty. 

In Crimson Lake, the main character is Ted Conkaffey who was accused, but not convicted, of killing a teenage girl.  His life is in shambles, and he’s hiding out in a small town trying to get his life back together. When his parole officer sets him up with a job assisting a private investigator, we meet the final anti-heroine covered in this post: Amanda Pharrell, who did time for murdering a friend when they were teenagers. But all is not what it seems, as happens in the best novels! As you can imagine, Amanda is fairly damaged from what happened to her as a teen: she doesn’t trust people, has few people skills and doesn’t seem to care much about anything.  But she’s good at her job. And when she and Ted are hired to find out what happened to a local celebrity, they have to find a way to work together in spite of their traumatic histories.

These three novels contain great examples of the anti-heroine character, adding depth and emotional heft to the stories contained therein.

Happy Reading!

The House of Broken Angels ~ Luis Alberto Urrea

Urrea, Luis Alberto. 2018. The House of Broken Angels. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. ISBN: 978-0316154888. $27.00 USD.

After seeing all the buzz and great reviews for this novel, I eagerly started it one weekend, and pretty much read it in one sitting.  It addresses so many important themes: families (and dysfunction therein), forgiveness, redemption and above all, love.

The day before Big Angel de la Cruz has his 70th birthday celebration, probably his last one, his mother passes away, and all the family who were coming in for the party attend the funeral first instead.  That is the set up for the novel;  but it is written in a non-linear manner - it takes the reader into the past to tell the stories of all the people who populate this big-hearted story.  We learn about Big Angel’s extended family: his father Don Antonio, who was a policeman in Mexico and abandoned the family for a white woman, leaving his wife and three children to suffer severe poverty; his brother Cesar, and sister Mary Luisa, who have their own back stories often hilariously told; his wife Perla and her two sisters Lupita and Gloriosa (ah, Gloriosa!); his children Lolo and Minnie, and most of all, his half-brother, Gabriel (aka "Little Angel"), born to Don Antonio and his American wife, Betty, through whom we witness many of of the events of the book.

There are a lot of characters in this book with formal names, nick-names and interesting connections, and I found it was helpful to create a family tree as I was reading. There are also a lot of Spanish words, and I had Google translate open most of the time I was reading, but it did not inhibit my enjoyment of the book.

The House of Broken Angels is an epic, raucous, often hilarious story that I just completely fell into.    We see the Mexican American de la Cruz family in all its amazing messiness, the good and the bad, but most of all, the love.  The quote from the book that keeps resonating with me is spoken by Big Angel near his death: “All we do, mija, is love.  Love is the answer. Nothing stops it. Not borders, not death.”

This novel expresses “inexplicable days of grace” in so many ways, and it will stay with me a long time.  Highly recommended!

Lake Silence ~ Anne Bishop

Bishop, Anne. 2018. Lake Silence. New York, NY: Ace Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. ISBN: 978-0399587245. $27.00 USD.

What a joy to be able to escape into another novel by Anne Bishop set in the world of The Others, one of my favorite series of all time!  Once I started reading Lake Silence, I had a hard time stopping and doing the things I should have been doing at work and home.

In this book, we are introduced to a new location and new characters, but the rest of the world-building coincides with Bishop's The Others series (which begins with Written in Red). In this unique world, Namid created earth natives first, and humans later.  Some of the earth natives, also known as “terre indigene,” have learned to shift into human form, and enjoy the innovations developed by humans.  Overall, however, the earth natives are suspicious of humans and view them as edible prey.

In Lake Silence, the main character is a recently divorced human woman named Vickie DeVine who has been brow-beaten very badly by her ex-husband and his wandering "Vigorous Appendage" (so funny)!!  As part of her divorce she received some property in an earth native settlement that is recovering from a "great predation," when the Elder earth natives got really angry with the humans and wiped many of them from the face of the earth.  Vickie has a tenant named Aggie, who is a member of the Crowgard (crows who can shift into human form), but Vickie doesn't realize that until she discovers Aggie heating up a human eyeball in the microwave for a snack!

From there, a murder mystery is introduced, as well as some really bad villains, interesting interactions between the humans in the settlement and the earth natives, and some quite humorous situations as well. (Oh, and there’s something living in the local lake near Vickie's property that is curious, dangerous and extremely vengeful).

Overall, Lake Silence was an enjoyable read and a lot of fun.  I only wish I could have savored this book more instead of rushing through to finish it, staying up way too late! You will get the most enjoyment from this book if you start at the beginning of the series. Thanks to NetGalley and Ace Books for sharing an early copy with me. Always, always appreciated!!

Happy Reading!

Queen of Hearts ~ Kimmery Martin

Martin, Kimmery. 2018. The Queen of Hearts. New York, NY: Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. ISBN:  978-0399585050. $26.00 USD.

They say you should write what you know, and debut author Dr. Kimmery Martin has done that - in spades!  She has crafted a wonderful debut, full of engaging characters, realistic dialogue, and a hint of mystery - plus descriptions of the practice of medicine that are illuminating and informative.

Zadie and Emma have been close friends since they met in medical school, bonding over the extreme stress and hardship that such an endeavor entails. Now successful doctors with busy lives, their friendship is tested by the return of a colleague and the memories of an event that had significant ramifications for all three of them.

The Queen of Hearts is a story of friendship and families, secrets and redemption.  I eagerly turned the pages to get to the end, and after reading the author's note, I sighed with the best kind of contented pleasure I get from reading a great book.  It is hard to believe this is the writing of a debut author!  Very well done!

Dreaming in Chocolate ~ Susan Bishop Crispell

Crispell, Susan Bishop. 2018. Dreaming in Chocolate. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, and imprint of Macmillan Publishers. ISBN: 978-1250089076. $15.99 USD.

I've always loved the Magical Realism genre (except for the first one: One Hundred Years of Solitude, I'm ashamed to admit)!  I think it goes back to my adolescence when I wished for the ability to change things about my life. I discovered contemporary Magical Realism with Sarah Addison Allen and have read many other authors and their interpretation of the genre, with pleasure.

Dreaming in Chocolate by Susan Bishop Crispell was an enjoyable read, and made me really hungry at the same time!  Penelope Dalton runs a hot chocolate cafe with her mother in a small town named Malarkey (what a name)!  In the cafe there is an apothecary table that magically provides recipes for various needs of the community.  Hot chocolate to see the future, chocolates to dream of your soul mate, and more. Penelope has given up believing in magic because the "soul mate" she saw in her dream at 18 turned her down and left her pregnant.  In addition, her daughter Ella is dying from a neurological ailment that no amount of wishes will cure. So, she vows to give her daughter the best few months that she has left, not knowing that her daughter is attempting some magic of her own.  When Penelope's soul mate returns to town, not knowing he has a daughter, Penelope tries to close her heart the best she can. But the magic isn't done with her yet.

The book has a lot going for it, and is heartwarming in a way that covers all the bases for domestic fiction.  If you like your romance a little magical, this book is for you!

Happy Reading!

P.S. This author's 2016 debut, The Secret Ingredient of Wishes, was also a great read!

The Broken Girls~Simone St. James (Published March 20, 2018)

St. James, Simone. 2018. The Broken Girls. New York, NY: Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House. ISBN: 978-0451476203. $26.00 USD.

I've been a fan of Simone St. James since reading The Haunting of Maddy Clare a number of years ago.  She has a great instinct for adding just the right amount of supernatural elements to her stories to make them interesting and believable.

In The Broken Girls, the the story takes place in Vermont across two timelines: the present day and the 1950s, when a group of girls resided at Idlewild Hall, a boarding school for young outcast women.  In the present day the main character, Fiona Sheridan, who is a journalist, discovers that someone has purchased the dilapidated manor house. This creates an obsession to research the history the school as she senses it's connected to her sister's death many years ago.  She isn't convinced the whole story of her sister's murder was really brought to light, and of course she's right.

In the narrative covering the past era, four residents of Idlewild Hall are introduced who have all "seen" or "heard" something that they think may be the ghostly presence of a young woman killed at the school in the 1800s.  There are mysteries to solve in the past and in the present, and the author does a great job of tying this non-linear narrative together.  I found The Broken Girls to be a very enjoyable (and spooky!) read. It's an excellent example of this genre.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Witch Creek: A Wildlands Novel ~ Laura Bickle

Bickle, Laura. Witch Creek. 2018. New York, NY: Harper Voyager, a division of HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN: 978-0062567314. Mass Market Paperback.

I'm so grateful to have had an opportunity to read the next installment in Laura Bickle's wonderful fantasy series, titled Witch Creek. It's a very unique world, and I've recommended the series over and over again. The characters are so intriguing and unusual, especially the coyote sidekick, Sig! My thanks, once again, to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for the DRC.  Reading the books in order will give you the best experience with this series (Dark Alchemy, Mercury Retrograde and Nine of Stars).

Petra Dee is a geologist who has lost a lot in her life, including a lover and her father, an alchemist (who is still sort of in the picture through...Alchemy (natch)! She lands in Temperance, Wyoming and discovers some very unusual supernatural occurrences in that small town, including some "Hanged Men" who live underneath a Lunaria tree that sustains them. All kinds of "evil-bad" guys cause trouble for Petra and Gabe, one of the Hanged Men with whom she has a number of adventures. It's hard to describe this series as a genre, as it pulls from a number of mythologies, including Native American, but I would call it Dark Contemporary Fantasy.

In this latest title things are not looking so great for the main characters:  Gabe is missing, having been kidnapped by the new heir to the land where the Lunaria was located; Petra has leukemia and has given up on treatment; and the new "evil-bad," the alchemy-created Muirenn (a mermaid-of-sorts) is on the loose and out for revenge. The way the author brings all these dire straits together is very creative, and she has left room for another novel to come (i.e. cliff-hanger)!

My advice: grab this series and get ready to binge-read!

Happy Reading!

The Recipe Box ~ Viola Shipman (Pub. Date: March 20, 2018)

Shipman, Viola. 2018. The Recipe Box. New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, and imprint of Macmillan Publishers. ISBN: 978-1250146779. $26.99 USD.

The Recipe Box by Viola Shipman was a special read for me, and I already have a number of library patrons, family and friends who I know will love it. Thanks to Edelweiss and Macmillan Publishers for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

The main character in this novel, Samantha "Sam" Mullins, grew up in a small town working in her family's orchard and pie shop.  She couldn't wait to leave and make her way in the "real world" of a New York bakery.  After a miserable experience as the sous chef for an egotistical celebrity baker, Sam returns home to work the summer for her family and reconnects with her mother, Deana, and her grandmother, Willa. She learns their histories as an adult and begins to see them in a different light, opening herself up to love and a future she thought she never wanted. This is a heartwarming book full of well-drawn characters, engaging dialogue and emotional resonance.

As a side note, I am of German descent and my grandmother and mother were excellent bakers and cooks.  My mother collected recipes over many years and self-published two cookbooks, with stories to go along with the recipes; many people have been blessed by her cookbooks.  And when I got married my mother, grandmother and aunt presented me with a wooden recipe box with hand written recipes filling it!  Those cards are smudged, stained and crumpled, just like the author's descriptions of recipe cards in this novel.  Lots of love expressed in my life over the years through sharing food and fellowship.

Below are pictures of my mom's cookbooks and recipe cards, some of which are over 30 years old!

Happy Reading (and eating)!

P.S. Fun Fact:  Viola Shipman is a pseudonym for Wade Rouse (who has also written The Charm Bracelet and The Hope Chest).  Rouse chose his grandmother's name, Viola Shipman, "to honor the woman whose heirlooms and family stories inspire his writing."

Wade Rouse will be an honored speaker at an author lunch at the 2018 Texas Library Association's Annual Conference in Dallas, Texas on April 4th.