Friday 5ive- August 8, 2025

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featurng five things that caught my attention this week.

The weekend was so beautiful, perfect weather to sit on my balcony and catch up on my reading.

1) We went to see Just in Time, a Broadway show about legendary 50s and 60s singer/songwriter Bobby Darin. The show is fantastic, with the staging as a nightclub setting. (Darin performed a great deal in clubs like the Copacabana. My companions didn't know anything about Bobby Darin and they loved the show. I knew a little about him, but I didn't realize that Connie Francis (who recently passed away) was his first love. Jonathan Groff gave an astonishing performance as Darin, winning a Tony nomination for it. If you're in NYC, I highly recommend going to see Just in Time. 

2) You see a lot of interesting things walking around the city, but I've never seen anything quite like the sight of an ad for a handyman. On top of his little car. On top of a gigantic box where I guess he keeps his tools? 

3) I like to try new items at Trader Joe's and this week it was Dark Chocolate Covered Cashews (with a  hidden layer of sweet caramel confectionary coating). Need I say more? They are delicious!

4) I binge-watched the sitcom Leanne on Neflix. It's a throwback to the traditional network TV sitcoms starring standup comic Leanne Morgan, with Kristen Johnston as her sister. Leanne portrays a woman married for 30+ years when her husband leaves her for another woman. It's very Southern and funny (if you've seen Leanne's comedy act you'll get it.) Leanne has to deal with her ex-husband, wild child daughter (who's almost 30), a son who is the light of her life, a beautiful grandbaby, nosy neighbor, and her elderly parents. The chemistry between Leanne and Kristen is perfection, and Tim Daly as Leanne's FBI agent love interest is terrific. There's  16 episodes and I hope we see season two. 

5) I read Beck Dorey-Stein's fantastic new novel Spectacular Things in one day this week (on my balcony). It's about two sisters, one of whom, Cricket, is on her way to becoming an Olympic soccer star. Older sister Mia has sacrificed much to help her talented sister realize her dreams. When Mia has a serious situation arise where she needs Cricket to make a choice that could put her career in jeopardy, the sisters face a crossroads in their relationship.

I devoured this story of sisters, it hooked me from the very beginning. We see the challenges their single mom faced to give them a good life, as well as the blessings and curses of being a star athlete with so much potential. 

The writing and characters draw you in, and if you are a soccer fan you will love this story even more. I'm always intrigued by athletes who perform at a high level, particularly if they begin as young children. Even though I don't follow soccer, I was captivated by that storyline.

Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid's Carrie Soto Is Back will want to read Spectacular Things. It was a Reeses' Book Club pick.

Have a safe and healthy week- until next time.

Friday 5ive- February 24, 2024

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish featuring five things that caught my attention this week.

1) I attended a luncheon at the beautiful Sarasota Club featuring a discussion with the popular The Thursday Authors talking books and the friendship they formed over Zoom during the pandemic. Fiona Davis, Lynda Cohen Loigman, Amy Poeppel and Susie Orman Schnall were led in discussion by Lea DeCesare. They talked about their current books, how they got their starts (all were not published until the age of 40+), the importance of sitting your butts in the seat and just writing, their favorite writing spots,  (Lynda writes at her kitchen table- how does she do that?) and so much more. The talk was interesting, inspiring and lots of fun. Many thanks to the Kappa Kappa Gamma alumnae of Sarasota/Manatee who put this terrific program together. (And Amy Poeppel is one of my go-to authors. I've read and loved all her books.)

Amy Poeppel and Susie Orman Schnall signed copies of their books

2) I had the most delicious appetizer at Café L'Europe in St. Armands Circle in Sarasota. It was deviled eggs topped with caviar and it was amazing. I will definitely be back.

3) What is the deal with this car parked on the Upper East Side? I don't know what it is trying to say. Any guesses? 

4) I saw the play "Doubt- A Parable" starring Liev Schreiber and Amy Ryan. I bought my tickets months ago when Tyne Daly was scheduled to play Sister Aloysius and I was so excited to see her back on Broadway as I have seen her in other shows and she is amazing. It was announced a few weeks ago that Tyne had to bow out for medical reasons and Amy Ryan was tapped to take over with just a few rehearsals. Amy's role is the biggest one in the show (Meryl Streep played the role in the movie). Amy Ryan was phenomenal, she hit it out of the park and should definitely get a Tony nomination for her performance. The show is set in the early 1960s at a Catholic school. Sister Alyosius suspects that a priest has been inappropriate with a young male student and she looks to a young nun, played so wonderfully by Zoe Kazan, to confirm her suspicions. Liev Schreiber plays the priest and this revival of John Patrick Shanley's 2004 play about doubt and convictions is timely and thought-provoking. Go see it if you can. 

5) The New York Times ran a piece featuring Oscar-nominated actors in their "Secret Places". Paul Giamatti, nominated for Best Actor for his role in The Holdovers, which he is brilliant in, chose to be photographed in a used bookstore.  As someone who runs a used bookstore in NYC (Paul lives in Brooklyn), I'd like to invite him to come see the Book Cellar. Here is the piece from the NY Times website:

Have a great week all, stay safe and healthy. Until next time.

Friday 5ive- January 19, 2024

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. One of my 2024 resolutions is to be better about posting this weekly. 

1)  I thought I had missed my chance to see the Rockefeller Center tree this year, but I managed to get there on January 11th, two days before it came down. This year's tree was particularly beautiful, so full and bright, and there were no crowds of people on the night I was there.

2)  The reason I got to see the tree was because I was on my way to see Broadway's Days of Wine and Roses. They turned the 1962 classic movie starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick into a musical starring two of Broadway's best performers- Brian d'Arcy James and Kelli O'Hara. It tells the story of a public relations executive in the late 1950s who meets and falls in love with a secretary. Joe often has to wine and dine people in his business, and he shares his love of alcohol with the teetotaler Kirsten. Kirsten begins to enjoy alcohol as much as Joe, and that love of alcohol causes problems for both of them. Even the birth of their daughter can't stop them from drinking. It's an emotional, powerful, and sad story. James and O'Hara are in fine form, their musical voices dominate this moving show. It's not a feel-good story, and I was suprised that they turned this into a musical rather than a dramatic play. It's a limited run show, 16 weeks only so if you are in NYC soon I recommend this show for the outstanding performances.

3) We found a fantastic little Italian restaurant in our neighborhood called Donna Margherita. I pass by it frequently on my journeys, and from the outside it looks rather nondescript. Then I looked up reviews for them and they were glowing. Everyone praised their authenticity, the delicious food and the attentive staff. We visited on a recent night with three other people and we were wowed by the food. Most of us had the Sunday Sauce pasta with short ribs that had simmered for seven hours. It was fabulous. The place is small inside, but very cozy and they have an outdoor seating area when it warms up. It will be on regular rotation and if you come to visit us, we'll probably take you there.

4)  If you watched any of the film awards ceremonies in the past few weeks, you have seen Paul Giamatti winning Best Actor for his pitch-perfect performance as a lonely, irascible, tough, unliked by everyone boarding school ancient history professor in the movie The Holdovers. We watched it on the Peacock streaming service and it was wonderful. Da'Vine Joy Randolph also won for her magnificent performance as Mary, the head of the cafeteria, a Black woman who recently lost her son in the Vietnam War. The movie, set in 1970 over the holiday weekend where everyone has gone home for the holiday but one student, the professor who draws Holdover Duty and Mary. The three end up forming an unlikely bond. It's a rare movie that both my husband and I like, but we really enjoyed this one and recommend it to everyone. If you liked the movie Sideways from back in the early 2000s, director Alexander Payne and Giamatti reunited from that one here.

5) Speaking of the Vietnam War, I have two books with that setting for you this week. The first one is Tim O'Brien's classic war novel The Things We Carried, which is my January edition from my Banned Books gift my daughter-in-law gave me last year. I can't wait to read his powerful novel of men in war.

Kristin Hannah's upcoming novel The Women is also set during the Vietnam War. Frankie McGrath leaves her upper class home in Coronado, California to join her brother who left to fight in Vietnam. She becomes a nurse specifically to go to Vietnam and her eyes are opened to another world, one she couldn't have imagined. Frankie becomes friends with her roommates Ethel and Barb, and the although the three women couldn't be more different, they become lifelong friends. Hannah puts the reader right in Frankie's shoes as she quickly learns how to save the lives of young men blown apart in war. We also see the aftermath of Frankie's service, her return home where people spit on her, call her a baby killer and alternately disregard her service by saying "there were no women in Vietnam." I loved the TV show China Beach, and The Women mines that same territory as well as the TV show. I found one small plot point at the end a little disappointing, but The Women overall continues Hannah's streak of writing deeply moving historical fiction (The Nightingale, The Great Alone, The Four Winds).  I highly recommend it.

Welcome to 2024 where winter has finally come to NYC. Stay safe and warm everyone, until next time.

Friday 5ive- June 9, 2023

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my attention this week.

1) The number one topic this week was the air quality on Wednesday. I was at work at the Book Cellar and we have windows that look out into a garden. We can see a little bit of the sky and we noticed that it was turning odd colors during the course of the afternoon, going from a cloudy grey to almost a bright orange. The NYPL closed all their branches at 3:30 and we headed home to what felt like being around a campfire, with that smoky odor (but alas, no smores). All is well now, our air quality index on Friday was 33.

Photo taken at 2:30pm on Wednesday by NBC News NY

2) Sunday I walked over to Times Square to see the Broaway musical Kimberly Akimbo. On my walk over, I got caught up in the Israel Day Parade and it took me a lot longer to get where I needed to be. The show was fantastic, one of the best I've ever seen. It's nominated for 8 Tony Awards on Sunday, and I hope it wins them all. Victoria Clark is a veteran Broadway performer and Tony nominated for her role as Kimberly, a 16 year-old girl who has a disease that ages her. Her body is 72 years old, but her mind is sixteen. Kimberly is befriended by Seth, who works at the local ice skating rink. Seth is played brilliantly by Justin Cooley, nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, in his Broadway debut. Kimberly has to deal with being an outcast in school and with her dysfunctional family. Her father is an alcoholic who forgets to pick her up from the rink, and her mother is hugely pregnant- and a narcissist. Kimberly has to take care of them. Her Aunt Debra is played by the hilarious Bonnie Mulligan (nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Musical) who steals the show with her physicality and impeccable comedic timing. Debra has spent time in prison, and comes back to convince Kimberly's high school friends to help her with her latest scam. The show is hilarious and heartfelt, you'll laugh and tear up. This is the one show to see if you are coming to New York. 

3)  I stopped in to visit the new McNally Jackson bookstore in Rockfeller Center on Sunday. All I can say is that it is a stunning bookstore! There are two levels, and the store is so wonderfully curated. Their Children's section is huge, with separate areas for Picture Books, Chapter Books and Young Adult, filled with thousands of books. The Fiction section on the top floor is has so many sub-genres- American Literature, British Literature, Russian Literature- even Oceanic Literature and Canadian Literature have their own section. I did think it was humorous to see True Crime next to Romance. I was very impressed and will returning when I can spend more time browsing.

 

4)  On my walk back home, I ran into a large crowd in Times Square calling for Russia to free Alexi Navalny, currently imprisoned in Siberia for daring to ask for democracy. 

5) I watched the last two episodes of Ted Lasso and all I can say is bravo. It was a lovely way to say goodbye to our friends in Richmond, and they tied up most of the storylines very well. I liked Nate's arc, and the scene where Coach Beard goes to visit Nate was so touching, I cried. Sam, the Nigerian player, has a great arc too. Roy and Jamie's bromance was fun to watch, and seeing all these characters grow as people was enjoyable. I also like how they left the door open for a spinoff, I think the fans would be on board for that.  And shout-out for the Little Free Library in front of the Lasso house- nice touch! 

The LIttle Free Library!

I hope you all had a safe, healthy week. Don't forget Father's Day is next Sunday! Until then.

Friday 5ive- May 12, 2023

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. The last few days have felt like summer in NYC with temperatures in the 70s and high 80s today. At least the rain has stopped.

1)  While in Sarasota last weekend we stopped in to see the Corvette Show in St. Armand's Circle. There were Corvettes as far as the eye could see, from some very cool older models from the 1960s through the latest iteration the C8 model. 

2)  The Pulitzer Prizes were awarded this week and I was thrilled to hear that Barbara Kingsolver's novel Demon Copperhead won the Fiction prize, along with Hernan Diaz for his novel Trust. It was the first time that two novels were awarded the Pulitzer in the same year. I declared Demon Copperhead the best novel I read in 2022 back in October. It's a reimagining of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield set in Appalachia at the beginning of the opioid epidemic. I think everyone should read Demon Copperhead, it gives the reader an eye-opening look at poverty, the foster care system, and how we got where we are today. The characters are unforgettable and the writing is superb. Congratulations to Barbara Kingsolver, I have read every one of her books and this one is my favorite.

3)  I saw the powerful Tom Stoppard play Leopoldstadt on Broadway this week. Set in Vienna, it traces the life of a joyous extended Jewish family beginning in 1899 and ending in 1955. The family owns a textile factory, and as the plays opens we see them all celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah, even decorating a tree. The proud head of the family Hermann is played wonderfully by Joshua Malina (The West Wing, Scandal). We see them grow and prosper as the years go by, but we also see the undercurrent of anti-Semitism that grows stronger as we get closer to WWI. Austria fought with Germany in WWI and after they lost the war, economic times became tougher with more restrictions, and Jewish people were easy targets for people's anger. We move forward toward WWII, and the Nazi Party has made inroads into Austria, and we see the family living in poverty and fear of being forced from their home and into concentration camps. Leopoldstadt is an important play, and as the tension grew for the family, you could hear a pin drop in the theater as everyone was holding their breath when the Nazi officials came to the family home. It reminded me of seeing The Normal Heart about the AIDS crisis, the audience is just stunned into silence. The play is nominated for many Tony Awards, including Best Play and Best Featured Actor for Brandon Uranowitz, whose performance in the last scene is astonishing. (Joshua Malina is unfortunately ineligible for Tony consideration as he did not originate the role, but he is worthy of one.) If you are in NYC, go see this brilliant show before it closes in July. 

4) The HBO Max series Succession is wrapping up its last season, and wow, it is going out with a bang. The question of who will run the Wayco company is anyone's guess, with the three Roy siblings, played by Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin, all jockeying for the role. There was one scene this week that everyone is talking about- daughter Shiv (Sarah Snook) and her estranged husband Tom (portrayed by the fabulous Matthew MacFadyen) having the fight of all fights out on their apartment balcony while inside a pre-election night party is in full swing. That is a masterclass in acting. How will this all end??? I can't wait to see. 

5)  I read a few books this week. Kirsten Pursell's intriguing novel, Long Enough to Love You, is about Jenn, a woman facing an empty nest after her children are away in college and ready to start their lives. She gave up her career to raise them, and now that she is not needed as a sports team mom or PTA President she has to decide whether to stay with her reliable but emotionally unavailable husband or go out on her own. When she finds a diary from her younger days, she contemplates looking for a former love. This one will resonate with some women, and my full review will post on May 31st. 

I also read a book now in paperback- Amanda Eyre Ward's suspense novel The Lifeguards. Set in a wealthy Austin suburb, three teen boys who have been friends since childhood and now lifeguard together come running home after finding the body of a dead young woman. They swear they didn't kill her or even know her but as the book progresses we discover that not everyone is telling the truth, including the moms of the boys. Whitney is the leader of the pack, a wealthy mom of twins, who will do anything to protect her son. Annette is a Mexican woman (also married to a wealthy man) who is happiest working at a local daycare center and is attracted to her coworker. Liza is a single mom living on the economic edge who is hiding secrets about her identity from everyone, including her son whom she fiercely loves. Everyone here has secrets. I'm not sure if it was the right book to read on Mother's Day week, but it did keep me guessing. 

I'm wishing all the Moms out there a very Happy Mother's Day. I hope you get to stay in your pajamas all day and read a good book or two.

Friday 5ive- April 28, 2023

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. It's been more than a few weeks since my last Friday 5ive post, it's been a busy time for me between work and a week off to Florida.

1) Speaking of Florida, we had dear friends visit us and we made our first trip to the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. It was incredible! The highlight of the museum is a huge building where they have recreated a miniature circus setting from days gone by. Starting with the circus trains pulling into a train station, and through the set ups of dozens of tents, hundreds of animals, and thousands of miniature people, you walk around and see the amazing village the circus creates when it pulled into town. Whatever they need- from multiple barber shops, blacksmiths, carpenter shops, makeup and costume shops, performers' tents- they bring from town to town. It's truly a remarkable sight to see, I can't imagine how many hours went into creating this. We will be going back when we can spend more time there. 

The animals

Backstage- you can see the women's costumes on the left

Under the big top!

You can visit Ca'dZan, John & Mable Ringling's former mansion

2)  Spring is busting out all over the Upper East Side this week. It's so delightful to see all these bright flowers blooming. 

3) A few weeks back I saw Sweeney Todd on Broadway. Josh Groban plays wonderfully against his sunny personality as the demon barber of Fleet Street in this production, and Annaleigh Ashford gives her best performance on the stage yet as Mrs. Lovett, the owner of the meat pie establishment who loves Sweeney Todd and becomes the beneficiary of Sweeney Todd's revenge scheme. The show is a dark one in tone (obviously), and I had forgotten how many great songs came from this Stephen Sondheim creation- 'Johanna' (my favorite), 'Pretty Women' and 'Not While I'm Around' among them. Ruthie Anne Miles is brilliant as the Beggar Woman and Gaten Matarazzo as Tobias are also standouts in this great cast. I would bet on Ashford to win another Tony for her performance, one that the late great Angela Lansbury won a Tony for her iconic performance and later recreated in the movie. This one rates a must-see. 

4) We watched the new Netflix series The Diplomat in two sittings. If The West Wing and The Americans had a baby, it would be The Diplomat. Keri Russell (Felicity, The Americans) plays Katherine Wyler, a diplomat who is packing to return to the American embassy in Kabul to try and get Afghanistanis who helped the Americans get out safely. She is suddenly summoned to become the new American ambassador to the United Kingdom, a post that she is unprepared to take. She is having marital difficulties with her husband Hal, a man involved in government politics who likes to stir up trouble, including for his wife. When a British warship is hit in the Gulf and 41 sailors are killed, the Prime Minister wants to militarily retaliate against the Russians who evidence suggest is behind it. Katherine and the Foreign Minister of the UK team up to try and find out who was behind the bombing, and Katherine discovers the real reason she has been chosen for her new posting. The acting is fantastic, especially Russell and Rufus Sewell as Hal, and the storyline is timely and propulsive.  (I also like that Keri Russell looks like a woman in her forties, not a plastic faced doll.) I am proud that I was able to guess what was going to happen in the last ten minutes of the season finale and can't wait for season 2. Another highly recommended from us. 

5) I ended up reading three books with similiar themes- Dennis Lehane's Small Mercies and Don Winslow's City on Fire and the sequel City of Dreams. Dennis Lehane's novel is set in 1974 Boston at the beginning of the busing protests. Mary Pat Fennessy has lived in the Southie projects her whole life. Her first husband died, her second husband left her, her Vietnam vet son came back from war addicted to drugs and died of an overdose and now it's just her and her teenage daughter Jules. When Jules fails to come home one night, Mary Pat discovers that her daughter is involved with the gangsters from the Irish mob who run Southie. On the same night Jules disappears, a young Black man was killed by subway train, the son of a woman who works with Mary Pat at a nursing home. Mary Pat is fierce and determined to find out what happened to her daughter and if she has to break heads and cross the leader of the Irish mob (think Whitey Bulger) to do so, she will. Lehane drops the reader into 1974 Boston and the language and violence is authentic and disturbingly realistic. I remember seeing the busing story on the news every night as a teen and it comes off the page vividly in Small Mercies. I highly recommend it. 

Don Winslow's City on Fire tells the story of the Irish and Italian mobs in Providence, Rhode Island in the 1980s. They co-exist somewhat peacefully until a woman comes between two hotheaded men on either side. Danny Ryan is the protagonist, a midlevel man in the Irish mob who, although he does his best to avert a war that he knows one side will lose badly, ends up smack in the middle, with the FBI on their tail as well. Once again, the language and violence is constant and disturbing, but authentic. I couldn't read this book fast enough, it reminded me of Mario Puzo's The Godfather, and Winslow's analogies to Greek mythology begin each chapter. This series has streaming miniseries written all over it. This is another recommend from me. 

The second book in the series City of Dreams finds Danny and his crew on the run where they land in Hollywood. Danny finds himself a job as a consultant on a movie about the Providence mob wars and he becomes involved with the lead actress. The action is once again propulsive as Danny and his crew try to avoid the Italian mob coming for them. I liked the first half of the novel novel better than the second half, I wasn't totally on board with the choices Danny made. 

Have a safe, healthy week, until next time.

Friday 5ive- February 17, 2023

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly(ish) post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. Since last week I was traveling, this post covers two weeks worth of fun. It's curently 60 degrees in NYC but it will be 28 degrees Saturday morning when I am heading to work. This weather is crazy.

1) My sister-in-law Brigette and I love Ina Garten's cookbooks, and we started a tradition of buying her new cookbook and choosing a three-course meal to cook with each other long distance over Facetime. This year from her Go-To Dinners cookbook we chose French Bistro Salad, Roast Chicken with Spring Vegetables, and Pannetone Bread Pudding for our menu. We began with the bread pudding, toasting the bread in the oven and then letting it sit the refrigerator all afternoon to soak up the custard. 

The toasted pannetone

The French Bistro Salad has sliced radicchio and endive (I subbed Boston lettuce for the endive), roquefort cheese, carmelized walnuts, matchsticked Granny Smith apples and a simple vinaigrette made with champagne vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper and olive oil. I loved this simple salad and will be making it often. 

The chicken was roasted alongside heirloom baby carrots, yellow onions, Yukon potatoes, and asparagus. Again, it was easy to prepare and so delicious, the best roast chicken I have ever made.

The Pannetone Bread Pudding was the calorie-buster of the meal with lots of eggs and half-and-half, but it was so worth it. I cut the leftovers into squares and froze for future treats. 

Brigette and I spent the prep time catching up and when it came for dinner, we placed our IPad on our dining table and shared our meal with our spouses. We both said we must do this more often. 

Diiner is served!

2)  There is a construction site near us that has been up for a few years now, and the ugly fencing around it has a new covering. A local politician got some money and had a local middle school work on art project. The students created scenes reflecting NYC and those drawings were screened onto fencing covering the site. It makes such a big difference! It used to feel so desolate walking by there and now it is bright and cheery. Great job!

3) Our friends took us to dinner to celebrate my husband's birthday and then to see A Beautiful Noise, the Broadway musical about the life of Neil Diamond. It was fantastic! If you've seen Jersey Boys, the show is in that similar vein. It tells the story of Neil Diamond through his iconic music. There was a lot I didn't know about Neil Diamond, and the performances, especially Mark Jacoby (playing Neil- Now) and Robyn Hurder as Neil's second wife Marcia were wonderful. We were there on a Wednesday night so we saw the alternate, Nick Fradiani, playing Neil-Then, and he was really great. At first I was disappointed that Will Swenson, who plays Neil-Then for seven performances a week wasn't on, but Nick was fabulous. The audience could not hold back, singing along with some songs, and then joining in for the encore of Sweet Caroline. If you like Neil Diamond and/or Broadway, go see this one.

4)  I finished watching all 11 seasons of Frasier on my Echo Show in my kitchen while preparing dinners, and I've moved onto NewsRadio, the 1990's NBC sitcom starring Dave Foley, Stephen Root, Maura Tierney (pre-ER), and the brilliant Phil Hartman on Amazon Prime video. Set in a NYC news radio station, it has me laughing out loud. Phil Hartman's blustery, bloviating newsman Bill McNeil is just perfection as he plays a more self-aware Ted Baxter-like character. The cast is top-notch, even if some of them are now better known for other more outrageous things today (Andy Dick and Joe Rogan), and the death of Phil Hartman after season four was so tragic. 

5)  I read a book I've been looking forward to for a long time now. Ayóbámi Adébáyo’s debut novel, Stay With Me was the most compelling book I read in 2017 and her second novel, A Spell of Good Things is just as powerful. Set in Nigeria, we meet two families, one wealthy and one in poverty, whose worlds collide.

Eniola is a young teen whose family is plunged into poverty when his father is one of 6000 teachers who lost their job. His father comes deeply depressed and he, his mother, and sister are forced into begging family and strangers for money for food, rent, and school tuition.

Wuraola is a doctor from a wealthy family who becomes engaged to longtime family friend. She begins to question her future when her betrothed’s behavior becomes intolerable, knowing that her family will be angry if she calls the wedding off.

Eniola’s involvement with a local group of young men with ties to a powerful politician at first seems to be the answer to his family’s money problems, but soon turns dangerous.

Adébáyo brings the reader directly into this Nigerian setting, with the dichotomy of the poverty of Eniola and the wealth of Wurola’s circle jumping off the page at you. The customs, the food, the education, political, and medical systems provide an eye-opening experience for the reader.

Once again, Adébáyo’s story is heartbreaking and you ache for these characters that you will not soon forget.

 

Stay safe and healthy, until next time my friends.