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

Friday 5ive- August 13, 2021

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

1)  THE HEAT! It's been over 90 degrees for the last three days. I'm lucky we have air conditioning. I stayed in the apartment Wednesday and Friday, on Thursday I walked five blocks to work at the Book Cellar. It was so steamy hot I'm pretty sure I lost five pounds of water weight walking the five short blocks. It should be cooler over the weekend thank goodness.

2)  People have been kindly bringing us vegetables from their gardens since we live in the city. We received gifts of zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, peaches, and sweet corn. I made an Eggplant Pamesan for dinner on Sunday, adapting an Ina Garten recipe. It was delicious (she adds goat cheese) and it will definitely go into the regular dinner rotation. 

Eggplant Parmesan

3)  I watched a little of the Field of Dreams baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox. My husband is a Yankees fan, our younger son a White Sox fan, so that makes it interesting. If you liked the Kevin Costner movie, you would have enjoyed it even more. (Costner was in the announcers' booth during the game.) Watching the players walk out from the cornfield at the beginning of the game was pretty cool, and the ending, with a walk-off homer from the White Sox to win the game, made it cinematic. The highlights are here. 

Photo from New York Times

4) One of my favorite sitcoms returns for it's final season. Brooklyn Nine-Nine ends its eight season run with two episodes every Thursday for five weeks. It has been one of the consistently funny sitcoms in recent history, and I will miss it. The cast- Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Amy Fumero, Joe Lo Truglio, Joel Miller, Dirk Blocker and Andre Braugher (how did this man not win an Emmy yet for his performance?)- is fantastic, and the writing brilliantly funny. At least I have reruns on Peacock. 

5) I read three books this week. I love a good Irish family story, and Tracey Lange's debut novel, We Are the Brennans, is wonderful. After daughter Sunday is seriously injured in car accident in Los Angeles, her brother Denny travels there to bring her home to Westchester County in New York. She left suddenly five years ago, leaving everyone bewildered, including her boyfriend Kale. Kale and Denny own Brennan's Pub and are preparing to open a second bar. There are so many secrets that come to the surface in this book, I read it on one day. I highly recommend it.

Sara Nisha Adams' novel, The Reading List, is set in a London suburb. Mukesh is a widower mouring the loss of his beloved wife a year ago. He is lonely, and looking for a way to connect with his granddaughter Priya. Priya loves to read, so Mukesh visits the local library his wife frequented to find a book for her. He meets Aleisha, a young librarian who lives with her severely depressed mother and older brother, who has taken on the role of breadwinner. Mukesh and Aleisha bond over books and become good friends. If you love reading and libraries, this one is for you. I really liked it, and fair warning, there are some very sad parts.

Saturday Night Live's Cecily Strong's memoir This Will All Be Over Soon shares her a year in her life. In January 2021, her 30 year-old cousin Owen died of brain cancer. He was someone who was always smiling, and his death devastated Cecily. A few months later, as the pandemic ravages the world, her new boyfriend contracts COVID and becomes quite ill. Cecily heads to the Hudson Valley to wait out the lockdown and her book takes an honest look at what living through all that was like. It's an homage to her cousin and  filled with heartbreak, fear, sadness, hope and love. Strong captures the feeling of that year in her words. 

It looks like COVID is not yet done with us. Please wear a mask indoors in public, wash your hands, stay socially distant, and get the vaccine if you are able. It will be the only way to get back to normal.