Two of the Best Reads of 2023

Reprinted from auburnpub.com:

This month’s Book Report has two books that are among my favorites of all 2023.


Tracey Lange’s debut novel, We Are The Brennans was a Book of the Month Club pick from 2021, and her second novel The Connellys of County Down was recently chosen  too.

The Connellys of County Down opens as Tara Connelly is being released after eighteen months in prison for a drug conviction. When her brother doesn’t show up to pick her up, she is surprised by the cop who arrested her.


Tara’s arrest never sat right with Detective Brian Nolan. He never understood why she refused to give evidence against Roland Shea, the drug dealer he and his uncle and mentor were after. He didn’t believe that Tara was a drug runner, his gut told him something else was going on.


Brian gives a reluctant Tara a ride home, but where was her brother and sister? Tara moved back to the home she shared with her older sister Geraldine, an accountant for a local construction company. Geri raised Tara and her brother Eddie after their mother died and their father abandoned them.


Eddie is a single dad to Conor, who adores Tara. Eddie had a brain injury years ago and still suffers from the aftereffects, including debilitating migraines. Geri seems wary of Tara, and relegates her to the dusty attic bedroom when Tara returns.


Going back to her job teaching art in a Catholic school is impossible, and the only job Tara can get is working for two young gamers trying to go viral. It’s minimum wage, but Tara grows to like the young men.


Geri is clearly struggling with something, Eddie continues to deal with his injury, and Tara tries mightily to keep her family together and rebuild her life. The story of this family pulled me right in, the characters seem like people you would meet in real life. Lange does a good job as she keeps the reader guessing as to the real story behind Tara’s arrest. I highly recommend The Connellys of County Down for anyone who loves a good family story.


Ann Patchett has written many excellent books, and her latest, Tom Lake, might just be her best yet. As Lara, her husband, and three adult daughters- Emily, Nell and Maisie- head out into their orchard to pick cherries for the harvest, the girls ask Lara to recount the time she dated famous actor Peter Duke. 

Lara tells her story, beginning with her playing Emily in her community’s production of “Our Town” when she was in high school. She was so good, it led to Lara going to Hollywood to act in a big-time movie.


After filming the movie, she went to a small town in Michigan called Tom Lake to act in summer stock. It was there she met Peter Duke, and they became lovers. Peter had great ambitions to be a famous actor and he had the talent. Their affair burned bright, and Patchett recounts Lara’s time in Tom Lake so vividly you feel like you are right inside the story.


Lara’s daughters parse every morsel of her story, questioning any small differences from previous retellings of the story. Every character is so precisely drawn, we get to know all of them- from Emily, the eldest who is destined to inherit the family farm and marry the boy next door, to Maisie, studying to be a veterinarian and helping the neighbors with their animals, to Nell, who wants to be an actress.


The setting of the story in the orchard during the pandemic hits all the right notes about how we felt during that time. We tend not to think about our parents' lives before we existed, and Tom Lake may make you wonder.


This passage by Lara really sings and I will end with it:


“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, and the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelieveably those get knocked aside as well, until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.”


The Connellys of County Down by Tracey Lange- A+

Published by Celadon Books

Hardcover, $28.99, 272 pages


Tom Lake by Ann Patchett- A+

Published by Harper

Hardcover, $30, 309 pages

Three Fascinating Family Stories

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

I enjoy a good family story, one that gives the reader insight into family dynamics. This month’s Book Report has three novels that delve into interesting family stories.


Naomi Hirahara’s Clark and Division is set during WWII. Aki and Rose are two sisters, born in America to Japanese parents. They lived in a California community, and their father has a good job managing a food market. 

They faced prejudice and racism at their mostly white school. When Aki was invited to a white classmate’s birthday pool party, the other girls refused to swim in the pool with her, and the hostess was ashamed to ask her to come back and swim at another time. Rose earned the starring role in her high school’s stage production, but parents again complained, and she was bumped to a lesser role.


Then the attack on Pearl Harbor happened. The family was forced to leave their home and most of their belongings behind to move to an internment camp. The living conditions were appalling, and they lost all of the freedom they came to America to find.


Rose is sent to Detroit, and the rest of the family would follow in a few months after she was settled. When Aki and her parents arrive in Detroit, they discover that Rose was hit by a train and killed.


They were told that she committed suicide, but Aki does not believe it. In addition to trying to adjust to life in a new city, Aki makes it her mission to find out what happened to her sister.


Clark and Division blends historical fiction about the treatment that Japanese-Americans faced in America during WWII with the mystery of what led to Rose’s death. It’s an enlightening novel that immerses you in a time and place, as well as keeping you turning the pages to find out what happened to Rose. 


Tracey Lange’s We Are the Brennans takes place in Westchester County in New York. When Sunday Brennan is seriously injured in a car accident in Los Angeles, her older brother Denny travels there to bring her back home. 

Sunday left the family home suddenly five years prior, and no one knew exactly why. Her brother Denny and his best friend Kale own Brennan’s pub, and are planning on opening a second pub in a nearby town.


Kale was Sunday’s boyfriend when she left without a good explanation why. He is now married and the father of a four year-old boy, and Sunday’s return home creates problems in his marriage.


Unbeknownst to Kale (or anyone else), Denny borrowed money from someone he shouldn’t have to finance the new pub. The stress of keeping that secret from everyone is causing him trouble.


I loved how the Brennan family worked their way into my heart. Brother Jackie is an artist who is so kind to the youngest son Shane, as is the entire family. The family rallies together to help Denny and Kale keep their business afloat.


We eventually discover why Sunday left five years ago, and that leads to more trouble for the Brennan clan. The secrets each family member keeps come to the surface and it will either save them or destroy them.


In Sara Nisha Adams’ The Reading List, Mukesh is a widower outside London in mourning for the loss of his beloved wife a year ago. He is lonely, only seeing people at his local temple and neighborhood grocery store. 

When his young granddaughter Priya asks him about the books her grandmother loved, Mukesh decides to visit the small local library that his wife frequented to get some books for Priya.


Mukesh meets Aleisha, a young librarian who lives with her seriously depressed mother and her older brother. Aleisha doesn’t like to read, but when she finds a paper in a library book that reads “Just in case you need it:” followed by a list of novels, she suggests one of these books to Mukesh.


Aleisha and Mukesh bond over these books, and it brings them both out of their shells. They become friends, and share their lives with each other. Mukesh and Aleisha work together to save the library from closure.


I enjoyed learning about Mukesh’s Indian customs, especially the food his family enjoys. If reading and libraries are something you enjoy, The Reading List should be on your To-Be-Read pile. The way they tie the Reading List to characters at the end is sweet. (A warning though- there are some sad events in this book as well.)


Clark And Division by Naomi Hirahara- A-

Published by SOHO Crime

Hardcover, $27.95, 312 pages


We Are the Brennans by Tracey Lange- A

Published by Celadon

Hardcover, $26.99, 288 pages


The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams- A-

Published by William Morrow

Hardcover, $27.99, 384 pages

October Books From the Book Expo

Once again I attended the Book Expo in May at the Javits Center and brought home lots of fantastic books. These are the books that published in October- some YA, memoir and literary fiction among them. (Click on the publisher links for more information on each book.)

1) Fans of Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give have their next read in Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal's I'm Not Dying With You Tonight. Lena and Campbell are two high school students who don't know each other, and don't have much in common. One night, a horrible incident at the football game leads to a night of dangerous chaos in their town. They must work together to make it home safely, but can they do it? Published by Sourcebooks Fire.

2)  Saeed Jones' memoir, How We Fight For Our Lives, was one of the Editors' Buzz Books on day one of the Book Expo. This week it was chosen as the Nonfiction winner of the prestigious Kirkus Prize. Praise for Jones' recounting of life as a gay man in the south, living with his religious mother and grandmother, has been effusive from all who have read it. Published by Simon & Schuster.

3) Ruta Sepetys latest YA novel, The Fountains of Silence,  is a big book set in 1957 Madrid. It tells the story of four people- Daniel, Ana, Rafa and Puri- as they try to survive and thrive under the despotic rule of Francisco Franco. This one has garnered much praise as well from critics, and Philomel Books publishes it.

4) Curdella Forbes's debut novel, A Tall History of Sugar is also set in the 1950s, but in the country of Jamaica. Moishe has a disfigurement that makes it impossible to tell what race he is. Arrienne loves Moishe from childhood and vows to protect him from those who mean to hurt him. The novel follows their lives through the context of Jamaica's colonial legacy. Akashic Books publishes it.

5) Carol Anshaw's latest novel is Right After the Weather, examines the aftermath of a violent incident. When Cate comes upon her friend being assaulted in her own home, what happens next changes her, and other people's view of her, forever. Atria publishes this haunting novel.

6) Susan Isaacs is back with another sexy, funny mystery set in the suburbs of Long Island in Takes One To Know One. Corie Geller retired from the FBI at age 35, married a judge, and became an instant mom to his 14 year-old daughter. Life is serene until she begins to believe that someone in her weekly lunch group is acting suspiciously. Is Corie just bored or is she on to something? Read it to find out. Published by Atlantic Monthly Press.

7) Aarti Namdev Shahani's memoir, Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares, recounts Aarti's family move from India to Casablanca and finally to Queens, NY. Aarti becomes a scholarship student at an elite Manhattan school and her father becomes unintentionally involved with the Mexican Cali drug cartel. It's a relevant, fascinating immigrant story, published by Celadon Books.