Two Books By My Favorite Authors

Reprinted from auburnpub.com:

There are some authors whose work I will always read. Their books are filled with characters that feel like people I want to know, the stories are interesting, and writing entrances me. Lisa Grunwald and Caroline Leavitt are two of those authors, and they both have wonderful books publishing in April.

There are some authors whose work I will always read. Their books are filled with characters that feel like people I want to know, the stories are interesting, and writing entrances me. Lisa Grunwald and Caroline Leavitt are two of those authors, and they both have wonderful books publishing in April.

Lisa Grunwald’s last novel Time After Time (about a young woman who, after she dies in train crash in a tunnel in Grand Central Station before WWII, returns to life but can only exist within the walls of Grand Central Central Station, falls in love with a train conductor) is one of my all-time favorites. It’s a beautiful love story.

Her new novel, The Evolution of Annabel Craig also has a historical setting. In 1925 Dayton, Tennessee, Annabel is married to George, a lawyer. Annabel overhears a group of the town’s businessmen discussing a newspaper article that states that the American Civil Liberties Union was offering to back any teacher in Tennessee who was willing to test a new law signed by the Tennessee governor. 

The Butler Act forbid the teaching of evolution in public schools in order to protect the children from hearing something that is in direct contrast to religious teachings. The Dayton businessmen believed that this test case could be a boon to business in town. 

Luckily for them, John Scopes, a young substitute science teacher and high school football coach, had taught a class about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which is found in their science textbook. John agrees and history is about to be made.

Annabel’s husband George ends up on the defense team, and their lives immediately change. Their neighbors and friends become angry with them. Over 200 reporters descend on the town, including a female reporter named Lottie Nelson. 

Lottie befriends Annabel and opens Annabel’s eyes to a life beyond being a housewife. Annabel likes to take photos and Lottie encourages her in this pursuit, telling Annabel that “what a person wants can change”. 

The Evolution of Annabel Craig may be a historical novel, but it has so many parallels to things happening right now. The media circus, the debate over separation of church and state in schools, the country coming out of a recent horrific pandemic (the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic), it all resonates with today's issues.

If you’re familiar the play “Inherit the Wind”, you know about this story. Lisa Grunwald tells it through the lens of Annabel’s growth as a woman, discovering who she is and what is important to her. It’s a book that leaves the reader with so much to think about, I read it months ago and I still think about it. I give it my highest recommendation.

Caroline Leavitt’s new novel, Days of Wonder is more contemporary, but also tells the story of  a woman’s growth. When Ella was sixteen years old, she fell madly in love with Jude. They were inseparable and their love became nearly obsessive.

When it appears that Ella and Jude poisoned his father, a judge, after he disapproved of their relationship, Ella is sent to prison while Jude’s father moves him far away.

Ella was pregnant with Jude’s baby and Ella’s mother Helen made the decision that the baby would be given up for adoption. Six years later, Ella gets out of prison and returns home to Helen, who just wants her daughter to be safe and happy. Ella cannot forget about the daughter she gave up however and is determined to find her.

Moving to Ann Arbor, Ella doesn’t tell her mother she is going to find her daughter who has been adopted by a couple. Ella becomes involved in the lives of her daughter and the woman who has adopted the baby without them knowing who she really is.

Meanwhile, Helen, who has never had a relationship with a man since she had Ella, finds herself involved with a man who treats her with kindness and respect. Her life has opened up in ways she never believed possible.

Leavitt does a remarkable job with the characters of Helen and Ella. We watch them change and grow as they have to deal with an impossible situation and we root for them. Helen and Ella have found a place in my heart and no one writes the mother-daughter relationship in novels better than Caroline Leavitt. I also give Days of Wonder my highest recommendation, and it may be Caroline Leavitt’s best book yet.

The Evolution of Annabel Craig by Lisa Grunwald- A

Published by Random House

Hardcover, $30, 320 pages

Days of Wonder by Caroline Leavitt- A

Published by Algonquin Books

Hardcover, $29, 320 pages

Fall Into Some Great Reads

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

If summer is traditionally a time for lighter “beach reads”, fall is a time for more “serious” books. This year, there are a plethora of books that will satisfy our literary desires.

Jess Walter’s 2012 novel, Beautiful Ruins took the world by storm, ending up on many Best of the Year and Best of the Decade books. This year he returns with another stellar novel, The Cold Millions. 

Set in 1909 Spokane, Washington, it tells the story of Irish immigrant brothers, Gig and Rye. They spend most of their time looking for day jobs, and trying to scrape enough money together to rent a cold porch in a woman’s home. 

Tired of living hand-to-mouth, Gig becomes involved with a local workers’ union, and during a workers’ protest, he and Rye are arrested and thrown in jail with hundreds of other men. Sixteen year-old Rye is released and catches the eye of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a union organizer who travels from city to city giving speeches and raising money to bring attention to the cause of workers’ rights.

Flynn, who is an actual historical figure, is despised not only for what she says, but also because as a woman she dares to speak out at all. This makes her a target for many, but especially for the obscenely wealthy business owners who do not want their workers to organize. 

The Cold Millions takes historical events and people and mixes them with fictional characters to create a fascinating story that resonates with things that are occurring in society today. The brilliant writing pulls you in, and the characters live on long in your mind long after you finish this though-provoking book. I give it my highest recommendation.

V.E. Schwab is best known for her young adult fantasy novels, but her newest novel, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is geared towards adults. Addie LaRue is a young woman who, in 1714 France, runs away from an arranged marriage to a widower. 

In the woods, she meets the form of a man who promises her the life she wants- freedom to choose how to live, whom to love, what to be. The only catch is that in exchange for this life, she must give her soul over to him. Addie agrees, but only if she can give up her soul when she is done living her life.

This Faustian bargain allows Addie to make her own life choices with one caveat- no one will remember her. Once she is out of their sight, it is as if they never saw her before. This makes for a very lonely life for Addie. She can’t hold a job, or have a relationship; she is forever a stranger. 

The only one who knows her is the fallen god who gave her this life. He shows up from time to time, and Addie’s exchanges with him are intriguing and tension-filled. He seems particularly drawn to Addie. 

Three hundred years later, in 2014 New York City, Addie meets Henry in a used bookstore and he remembers her name. How is this possible? Henry and Addie begin to spend time together, and everything changes for Addie. Could this be the life she has always wanted?

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue reminded me of one of my favorite books from the past few years- Lisa Grunwald’s Time After Time. Both books ask the question “What would you give up for the love of your life?” 

I loved The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It reminds us to be careful of what we wish for, it may not be what you wanted. A tantalizing adult fairy tale, I give it my highest recommendation. 

Cassidy Lucas’ mystery Santa Monica begins with handsome, hot trainer Zack being discovered dead in his gym by his secret half-sister Leticia. She is an undocumented worker from Mexico, living here with her young disabled son.

Leticia works many jobs, cleaning the homes of the wealthy women of Santa Monica, including Brooklyn transplant Mel, who moved when her husband’s movie script became a success. Zack is drawn to Mel, which angers Regina, who is running a financial scheme with him.

This terrific mystery is elevated by the writing, characters, and the tackling of the difficult life of an undocumented worker. It has explicit sex, and if you liked Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, pick up Santa Monica. I couldn’t put it down. 

The Cold Millions by Jess Walter- A+

Published by Harper 

Hardcover, $28.99, 352 pages

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab- A+

Published by TOR

Hardcover, $26.99, 444 pages

Santa Monica by Cassidy Lucas- A

Published by Harper Perennial

Trade paperback, $16.99, 348 pages

Friday 5ive- July 26, 2019

Welcome to the Friday 5ive for July 25th. It was sweltering hot last weekend, thank goodness it cooled down (and that we have excellent air conditioning both at our apartment and at The Book Cellar where I volunteer.) These are five things that caught my attention this week.

1) Sunday was a scorcher but I managed to take a trip to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to attend a brunch with 60 enthusiastic readers at Cebu Bar & Bistro to hear Adriana Trigiani and Lisa Grunwald talk about writing, the creative process and Lisa's new book Time After Time, which is my favorite book of the summer. It's always good to see Adriana, and she kindly asked me to say a few words about my love for Time After Time, which I gladly did. I handed out my cards to women who asked me about my blog, so welcome new readers! I met two lovely women at my table, Reggie and Joanne, and we shared our favorite authors and books.
I also got to speak with Lisa Grunwald and her husband Steve, and they are such kind and interesting people too, I now feel like we are friends as well. Lisa's publicist at Random House, Karen Fink, took this photo of us, and I enjoyed chatting with Karen as well. Nothing is better than talking books with new people! My blog post about the day is here.

Me, Lisa Grunwald, Adriana Trigiani

2) It was a week for bookish events as two of my coworkers at the Book Cellar (Allison and Rachel) and I attended a talk about historical fiction with writers Lauren Willig, Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb at Shakespeare and Co. on the Upper East Side. The ladies were funny and interesting, talking about collaborating with other authors, how they research, and the importance of cocktails. Willig lives in our neighborhood and visits the Book Cellar, and her latest book, The Summer Country, is set in 1812 and 1854 Barbados and is a fabulous book, dropping the reader right into steamy Barbados. My review is here.
Gaynor and Webb's new book, Meet Me In Monaco is set during Grace Kelly's wedding to Prince Albert and sounds so fabulous, I can't wait to read it. My book club read Gaynor's The Memory of Violets a few years back, and we enjoyed it immensely. Her lovely Irish lilt (she lives in Ireland) is delightful too.

Hazel Gaynor, Heather Webb, Lauren Willig 

Allison and Rachel get their books signed

3) The sign of the week had me laughing out loud. The Meatball Shop has this one outside its restaurant and it perfectly encapsulates this week's heatwave.

4) Lots of us were waiting for Levain Bakery to open its new location a short 12 blocks from our apartment. They sell the most sinful cookies- Chocolate Chip Walnut, Dark Chocolate Chip, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip and Oatmeal Raisin- and I visited them on opening day to get some. I didn't even mind that it poured buckets of rain down on my head as I walked home because, you know, cookies.

5) My husband and I have been watching The Loudest Voice miniseries on Showtime, about Roger Ailes, the man who created and ran Fox News. Russell Crowe is unrecognizable and hypnotic as the bombastic, bullying and creepy Ailes, who was forced out of Fox News for sexually harassing women in his employ.

I hope you have a wonderful and cooler week.

Brunch With Lisa Grunwald and Adriana Trigiani

Me, Lisa Grunwald and Adriana Trigiani

Yesterday I took a trip to Bay Ridge Brooklyn for a brunch with fans of Adriana Trigiani and Lisa Grunwald at Cebu Bar & Bistro, organized by The Bookmark Shoppe. Close to 60 of us gathered to hear these wonderful authors talk about their creative process.

Many in the crowd were being introduced to Lisa Grunwald, whose novel Time After Time is the highlight of the summer for me. (My review is here.) Adriana Trigiani has been raving about Time After Time on her weekly Facebook Lives, and it sounded so intriguing I had to read it.

Time After Time tells the story of a young woman, Nora, who is killed in a horrific train crash at Grand Central Station in New York City in 1925. On the anniversary of her death in 1937, a railman named Joe sees Nora at Grand Central, looking disheveled and out-of-place, but beautiful. He offers to walk her home, and on the way there she disappears.

Every year on the anniversary of her death, Nora reappears. She and Joe fall in love and manage to create a life within the confines of Grand Central, as they discover that she is safe within those walls.
It's a beautiful love story, one that completely absorbs the reader in that time and place with these two people.

Lisa Grunwald was researching for another book when she came upon a book about Grand Central Station in the 1940s. She found a story about a man who saw a woman there who asked him to walk her home. She disappeared on the way, but the man continued to the address where he found a woman who lived there, and when he told her his story she said that it was her niece, who died a dozen years ago at Grand Central and that this happens every year on the anniversary of her death.

Grunwald did a great deal of research for this brilliant novel, reading every book she could find about Grand Central's history, going on Ebay where she found uniform buttons for railmen, maps, ticket stubs and more. She called it "going down the rabbit hole." Her attention to detail in the book is what makes the reader feel like she is right there.

She spoke of the main theme of her book- how much do you sacrifice for love? Nora is stuck in this one place and if she and Joe want to be together, is he willing to sacrifice everything else to be with her?

Trigiani and Grunwald spoke about their different styles- Trigiani writes a book a year, Grunwald takes three to four years to complete a book. They spoke about the importance of gestating ideas, just sitting and thinking, which is difficult to do in this fast-paced, immediate gratification world we live in.

An audience member asked if the authors know the endings to their books when they begin to write. Grunwald says that she likes to think she does, and 50% of the time she is right. In the new book she is writing, she knows the ending but not the beginning as of yet. Trigiani says she always thinks she knows the ending, then as her deadline approaches, she keeps adding and changing the ending.

It was an interesting event, and I met some lovely people at my table, Reggie and Joanne, and we had a wonderful discussion about our favorite books and authors. If you ever get the chance to meet an author, take it. It's fascinating to hear about the process of writing.

Both Time After Time and Triagiani's latest book, Tony's Wife (which comes out in paperback on Tuesday, July 23rd- my review is here) have stunning book covers, and they are both set in the 1940's. If you want to get lost in a different time and place (and with all the current national discord, who doesn't?), pick up these lovely novels.

I love the covers of these books

Lisa Grunwald's website is here.

Adriana Trigiani's website is here.

Friday 5ive- June 21, 2019 edition

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

1) On Sunday, Father's Day, my husband wanted to go to the Mercado Little Spain a market located in the new Hudson Yards on the west side. The market is the Spanish version of Eataly, filled with small areas  and restaurants where you can get produce, fruit, meats, cheeses, churros, tapas, paella and delicious sangria. The big tourist attraction is the Vessel, a giant public sculpture that has 154 interconnecting flights of stairs where you have a beautiful view when you get to the top. I'll have a blog post about our visit to the market soon.

The Vessel

2) On Thursday I went to Book Culture, a lovely little book store on the Upper West Side to listen to Lisa Grunwald talk about her fabulous new book, Time After Time with author Betsy Carter. I absolutely loved Time After Time and the conversation was so fascinating. Carter and Grunwald are journalists as well as authors so they both knew their way around an interview. I'll have a post about the evening soon. I'm afraid I fangirled a bit when I met Lisa and I almost left without my books! Her daughter Elizabeth offered to take a photo of us. Seriously, read this book, it's one of the best ones I have read this year. My review is here.

Me and Lisa Grunwald

3) As I came out of my post office today I saw a Postal Police car outside. I'd heard of the postal police, but had never actually seen them until today. They're probably going to arrest all the people who continue to put their UPS and FedEx return packages in the USPS drop box. Apparently it's a serious problem. Book 'em Dano.

4) I started season three of The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu this week. I just finished episode three, Mary and Martha, which was a brilliant episode. Watching Bradley Whitford and Elisabeth Moss in their scenes together is just a master class in acting. As a huge West Wing fan, I enjoy seeing Josh Lyman and Zoe Bartlett spar. And no one can act better with just her face than Moss. Check out the last shot of the episode in the photo below. Better watch out Gilead.

Elisabeth Moss as June

5) I read Susan Page's biography of Barbara Bush, The Matriarch, this week. Page was able to interview Barbara Bush five times before she passed away, and the book is filled with insight into a woman that we may think we know because she had been in the public eye for so long, but there are surprises here. I found it illuminating, and Page's access to Mrs. Bush's journal entries was invaluable. I especially enjoyed her grandchildren's take on the strong woman they called Ganny. Her rules for visiting the family home in Kennebunkport had me shaking my head and saying, "Yes, you tell them Ganny!" The Matriarch is a must-read for American history and biography readers.

I hope you had a good week and happy summer!

Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald

Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald
Published by Random House ISBN 9780812993431
Hardcover, $27, 416 pages

People often ask me where I get my book recommendations. Frequently I get them from my bookish friends, other bloggers, and authors. So when two people whose taste I respect (including author Adriana Trigiani) told me I have to read Lisa Grunwald's Time After Time, I listen.

I'm not normally a fan of time travel/magical books, but this one sucked me right in. In 1925, a young woman named Nora was killed, along with many other people, in a horrific train crash at Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

In 1937, Joe, a railroad leverman man who works at Grand Central, finds Nora standing near the gold clock at the terminal, looking lost and out of place. He asks if he can help her, and there is a spark between them. She says she has to go home to Turtle Bay Gardens, and Joe goes back to work.

Exactly one year later, Joe sees Nora again at the terminal. He takes her to lunch at a coffee shop in the terminal and they get to know each other. Joe offers to walk her home, and after a young man accosts them and Joe scares him off, he turns to find that Nora has disappeared.

When Joe goes to the address that Nora gave him, a man living there says that Nora doesn't live there- she died thirteen years ago in the train crash. Joe is astonished and can't believe the story, but something about Nora is different and maybe this could explain it.

Joe can't get Nora out of his mind. He discovers that Nora shows up on the anniversary of the day of her death, which happens to be Manhattanhenge, a phenomenon when the sun lines up with the East/West streets so that you can see it from the East River to the Hudson River.

Every year on that day, he looks for Nora at the exact place he orginally found her. Now they need to find out what makes her disappear. While they figure that out, they fall in love as they explore all of Grand Central Terminal together.

Lucky for them, Grand Central Terminal has everything they need- food, clothing stores, and Nora even takes art lessons there. They try to have as normal a life as possible, even staying at the Biltmore Hotel there.

Watching them fall in love is lovely, and seeing Grand Central Terminal through their eyes is magical. It will be impossible now to go to Grand Central Terminal and not look for Nora and Joe, as well as stare at the window that seems to be Nora's porthole to life.

I can't recommend Time After Time highly enough. It is a love story to get lost in, and it feels like it is destined to be a classic, a book that you can return to again and again to reread.  Joe and Nora touched my heart deeply. Time After Time is the love story of the summer. Do yourself a favor and read this book.