bookchickdi: GP Putnam's Sons

Showing posts with label GP Putnam's Sons. Show all posts

Monday, May 2, 2022

New in Paperback- Blush by Jamie Brenner

Blush by Jamie Brenner

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons ISBN 9780593087817

Trade paperback, $17, 416 pages

Jamie Brenner’s Blush starts out in Manhattan, on the Upper East Side where the successful fancy cheese shop Leah has run for twenty years is about to lose its lease.

Leah returns to her parents’ wine estate in North Fork, Long Island where her father tells her that they must sell the winery that they built forty years ago due to financial reasons. Leah always wanted to be a part of the winery business, but her father chose her brother Asher as his heir apparent to learn the business, which hurt Leah.

Vivian, Leah’s mother, is devastated to learn that they will not only lose the winery, but also the beautiful home that she designed on the property. Vivian has always been the face of the winery, the impeccably dressed hostess for weddings and tastings, but she always wanted to have more of a say in how the business was run.

When Leah’s daughter Sadie shows up hoping to work on her thesis, she discovers a cache of notebooks that her grandmother had hidden recounting the book club meetings that she held years ago.

The books discussed were novels popular in the 1980s- Judith Krantz’s Scruples, Jackie Collins’ Chances and Shirley Cochran’s Lace among them. (Many of us will recognize those titles immediately from our own reading history.)

The three women, along with Asher’s much younger girlfriend Bridget, form their own book club to read these books and take inspiration from the characters in the story. The women in these books took it upon themselves to go after what they wanted in business and their personal lives. Can these women do the same and save the winery from disaster?

If you are someone who enjoys wine, as I do, you’ll will get a higher level of satisfaction from this book as you learn all about the process of growing grapes for wine, all the way through the winemaking process. I found it utterly fascinating.

Brenner excels in showing us the three stages of loving relationships- Vivian and her husband of forty years and the lifelong partnership they have, Leah and her husband’s middle-aged marriage issues, and Sadie finding love in the throes of youthful attraction.

I liked how the title of the book- Blush- echoes the one-word titles of the 1980’s novels. Blush is a wonderful female-centered story that updates the sentiments of those earlier novels for today’s woman.

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

The Guncle & How Lucky

Reprinted from the Citizen:

February is the month we celebrate Valentine’s Day and love. This month’s Book Report features a few books I loved, but not necessarily books about romantic love.

Steven Rowley’s fantastic novel The Guncle is about Patrick, an actor who made his fame and fortune on a television sitcom a few years back. When the sitcom ended, Patrick left Los Angeles behind and moved to the solitude of Palm Springs away from everyone.

Patrick’s best friend Sara married his brother Greg, and they had two children, Maisie and Grant. When Sara dies, and Greg has to deal with some troubling issues of his own, Greg asks Patrick to take in Maisie, age 9, and Grant, age 6, for the summer.

Patrick agrees, and the children go to live with the man they call GUP (Gay Uncle Patrick). He doesn’t know much about caring for children, but he does know about dealing with grief after losing his boyfriend in a car accident a few years ago.

They fall into a routine, riding bikes in the morning, swimming in the pool, having dance parties, going out to eat. Things seem to be going as well as they can until Patrick’s sister Clara comes to town and wants to take the children back to their home in Connecticut. She believes she is better suited to care for the children until their father can come home.

The Guncle is a lovely, heartfelt story with characters you’ll fall in love with. Patrick grows to deeply love the children, and he gives them the sense of security and understanding they need. They in turn open Patrick’s heart up after it was broken in grief.

Although the story is tinged with sadness, there is humor in it as well. Patrick sprinkles in his ‘Guncle Rules’, like this one: “Guncle Rule number eight: Make the Yuletide gay”, something they did when they put up their Christmas tree in the summer to celebrate the holiday early and left it up all summer.

Patrick also has wise words born of experience. “Grief orbits the heart. Some days the circle is greater. Those are the good days. You have room to move and dance and breathe. Some days the circle is tighter. Those are the hard ones.”

The Guncle is a story about a family lifting each other up and loving each other. You will smile throughout, and tear up at times. The dialogue is wonderful, and I think it would make a terrific movie.

Will Leitch’s terrific novel How Lucky has a unique protagonist. Daniel is a 26 year-old man who has SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy), a debilitating disease that leaves him unable to speak or move (other than his left hand) and using a wheelchair. He works monitoring a customer service Twitter account for a small regional airline, and lives on his own in the college town of Athens, Georgia.

His childhood best friend Travis and an immigrant home health aide Marjani help care for him. Everyday Daniel sees a young woman walking down his street on her way to class. One day he sees a car stop and she gets in.

The young woman ends up missing. She is a Chinese student who, like Daniel, has trouble communicating as she doesn’t speak much English. Daniel and Travis contact the police about what Daniel saw, but when a young policeman stops by Daniel’s house, the communication problems cause the policeman not to take Daniel seriously.

Daniel turns to the internet site Reddit to alert a group of students searching for the missing woman. The man in the car sees the Reddit post and responds to Daniel. Daniel keeps in contact with the man, hoping to find out what happened to the missing woman, but it also may be placing himself in danger.

How Lucky is a real page-turner, and some people have compared the premise to the famous Jimmy Stewart movie Rear Window, which is an apt comparison. The reader also learns what it’s like to live completely dependent on others for day-to-day living.

This book has it all- great characters, a fast-paced story, an interesting setting, a mystery to be solved, and How Lucky is nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. Like The Guncle, Travis, Daniel and Marjani become a family who care for each other.

The Guncle by Steven Rowley- A+

Published by G.P. Putnam & Sons

Hardcover, $27, 336 pages

How Lucky by Will Leitch- A+

Published by Harper

Hardcover, $25.99, 304 pages

Monday, May 13, 2019

Two Fantastic New Mysteries

Reprinted from the Citizen:

This month’s Book Report features the most recent domestic suspense novels from two writers who have written popular mystery series, as well as standalone novels.

Alafair Burke has authored 18 books, five of them the Under Suspicion series with the legendary Mary Higgins Clark, two series of her own, and five standalone books. Her latest standalone, The Better Sister, is thematically related to her two most recent successful books, The Ex and The Wife, but with different characters.

In The Better Sister, Chloe, the executive editor of the highly acclaimed feminist magazine Eve, returns home from an awards banquet where she was the honoree to find that her husband, Adam, has been murdered. Chloe knew that the spouse was the first suspect in the mind of the police, so she did everything in her power to be helpful.

Things become complicated when the police turn their attention to Adam’s teenage son, Ethan. Ethan is the son of Adam and his first wife, Nicky, Chloe’s older sister. When Ethan was a toddler, Adam returned home to find Nicky face-down in their pool, with Ethan by her side.

He divorced Nicky and moved to New York, where he and Chloe eventually fell in love, married and raised Ethan. Nicky was out of the picture — until Adam’s death. Since Chloe was not Ethan’s legal mother, Nicky returns to take custody of her son.

Chloe and Nicky revert back to their familial roles: Chloe was the good girl who followed the rules and worked hard, Nicky was the partier with little sense of responsibility. Can they work together to clear Ethan?

Burke is a former prosecutor, and she knows how to write a courtroom scene that rings with truth and tension. And every parent’s heart will sink at the thought of their child in the situation that Ethan finds himself in.

The Better Sister is the perfect blend of character and plot. The characters drive the plot, and each character has secrets they are hiding that show they are not the person others believe them to be. This is a book you’ll want for a long airplane trip — time will fly as you furiously flip the pages to find out who did it.

Lisa Scottoline has written 41 books, including two series, several humorous nonfiction books and 15 standalone mysteries. Her newest standalone, Someone Knows, also deals with a big secret that drives the plot.

Allie comes back to her hometown for the funeral of a man she had a crush on in high school 20 years ago. No one knows why David killed himself, but Allie is sure it has something to do with a tragedy that she, David, Sasha and Julian have lived with for the past 20 years.

After Allie’s sister died of cystic fibrosis, her family fell apart. Her mother couldn’t get over her grief, and her father couldn’t help her. When three of the cool kids in school bring Allie into their small group, she hopes that David will be her boyfriend.

Something bad happens one day in the woods, and the group breaks apart. Allie goes away to college, and marries a great guy, but can’t get over her guilty feelings. It drives a wedge between her and her loving husband, and Allie realizes she must find out the truth about what exactly happened if she is ever to find peace in her life.

But the two remaining people who know, Sasha and Julian, don’t want to talk about it. They have moved on, and don't want Allie to stir up the past.

The end of the book is filled with suspense, and you’ll be biting your nails and holding your breath, especially as everything comes to a furious conclusion. I found myself screaming, “Don’t go there, what are you thinking?” at one point. If it was a movie, I’d be peeking between my hands covering my eyes. (And it should be a movie.)

Scottoline really nails the teenage mind: the inability to think things all the way through, the longing to be part of a group, and the willingness to follow instead of doing what you know is right.

She also brings great empathy to Allie’s family situation when her sister dies. The family can’t find their way to grieve together, and it’s heartbreaking. Scottoline’s books get better with each one, and Someone Knows is among her very best.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Overseas by Beatriz Williams: A 50 Shades/Time Traveler's Wife Mashup

Overseas by Beatriz Williams
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons ISBN 978-0-399-15764-6
Hardcover, $25.95
Source: review copy provided by the publisher

Take Fifty Shades of Gray (minus the whole BDSM-thing), add The Time Traveler's Wife, plus a dash of Erin Duffy's debut novel Bond Girl, and a pinch of Maisie Dobbs' WWI mysteries, shake them all up in a box, and you get Beatriz Williams' imaginative debut novel Overseas.

Young analyst Kate Wilson has a summer job at Sterling Bates bank, a Wall Street institution. When she attracts the attention of superstar hedge fund billionaire Julian Laurence, sparks fly and they begin a relationship, much to the consternation of her hated boss Alicia, who aims to do Kate in.

But what does this have to do with Captain the Honorable Julian Laurence Spencer Ashford, WWI British Army hero who wrote a famous love poem, Overseas, to his fiancee back home and died tragically on the battlefield in France? Are the two men distant relatives or something more?

Julian and Kate begin a relationship, only to have Julian dump Kate soon after, without warning or reason. When Julian reappears months later, saving Kate from an attack in Central Park, they reignite their relationship, although Julian acts very mysterious, paranoid even.

Kate is accused of violating insider trading laws and fired from Sterling Bates, and she believes that Alicia is behind it. Julian offers to help her find out what happened, and whisks her off to his country home in Connecticut where their relationship grows deeper.

Julian loves Kate, almost from the first moment he saw her, and he showers her with affection and gifts. Kate understands the affection, but the expensive gifts make her uncomfortable. There was one line I adored, something that explains the deep relationship between true soulmates. Julian says:

"There's a difference between giving and sharing, darling. I'm not giving you anything. You're a part of me. It's all just yours."

But Julian is keeping secrets from Kate, and there are men following her. What is behind all this? The mystery behind who exactly Julian is and why people seem to want to hurt Kate and him is well drawn-out and comes to a convincing conclusion.

This imaginative book defies categorization, with aspects of mystery, romance, fantasy, and a little science fiction all carefully put together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that, when finally finished, brings great satisfaction.

It's not a book that when described to me I thought I would choose to read, but I'm glad I opened my mind and heart up to it. The storytelling is very clever, and I would have loved to seen the editor's pitch for this book. My only criticism would be that it may have been a bit too long, with too many scenes between Kate and Julian establishing their relationship.

That said, I look forward to Beatriz Williams next book; she has a lot going on in that creative mind of hers.

rating 4 of 5