More Summer Fun Reads

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

More Fun Summer Reads

Summer is a great time to pick up a fun book, and continuing in the vein of last month’s Book Report, I have more summer reads for you.

John Searles usually writes atmospheric psychological thrillers (Her Last Affair and Strange But True), and this summer he switches gears with Single Girls a delightful fictionalized book about Helen Gurley Brown and the origins of Cosmopolitan magazine in the 1960s.

Helen’s book 1965 Sex and the Single Girl encouraging women to hold off on marriage until they were ready and to enjoy a healthy sex life scandalized many people. It also was a clarion call for single women everywhere. 

The success of the book encouraged Helen to start a magazine for women. Most of the male publishers turned her away immediately but one publisher (whose wife encouraged him to give Helen a chance) offered her three issues to prove that she could sell magazines and advertising revenue in the magazine.

In the novel we meet the women Helen hired as writers and editors, and they are each unique and interesting. I was particularly drawn to Helen’s friendship with Liz Smith, who went on to become a mainstay of New York City tabloids writing columns about the rich, famous, and infamous. The larger-than-life Liz and the self-professed “mouseburger” Helen had a wonderful work relationship.

I so enjoyed reading about all the hard work that went into making Cosmopolitan one of the most successful magazines in the country.  Cosmopolitan’s ad revenue was always among the highest grossing in the publisher’s portfolio. Anyone who was around in the 1970s-1990s will remember the ubiquitous “Cosmo” covers and enjoy reading how it all started. 

John Searles was the editor of Cosmopolitan’s book review page for some years and his love for the magazine business, and Helen Gurley Brown and Cosmopolitan in particular, adds such joy and insight.

You know it’s summer when a Mary Kay Andrews book has arrived. This year it’s Road Trip about two sisters- Maeve, a school administrator who spent the past months caring for their dying mother, and Therese, a struggling actress who left home years ago and hasn’t been successful. 

When their mother passes away they discover that she mortgaged her home to give her money to a shady televangelist. The only thing she left them was a painting of a supposed wealthy Irish ancestor and money to travel to Ireland together.

Therese does some digging and discovers that their exact same painting had recently sold for millions, and so she convinces Maeve to travel with her to Ireland to see if their painting is also worth money.

The two sisters are different as night and day but they manage to work together as they discover the true story behind their painting, although there are people in the little town who would prefer they go home rather than uncover long hidden secrets.

The mystery, a blossoming romance, and the Ireland setting all combine to make for a charming story. It just may be Mary Kay Andrews’ best book yet.

Annabel Monaghan is another author who writes novels perfect for summer reading (It’s a Love Story, Nora Goes Off Script). This summer it’s Dolly All The Time about a single mom of teenage son who makes her annual summer return to her hometown near Newport, Rhode Island to help her father in his seafood store.

Times are stressed for Dolly and when she learns that her father’s home needs a new roof, she doesn’t know how they will pay for it. Enter the town’s wealthiest resident’s scion son, Stewart Whitfield, whose fiancee was just caught canoodling with a New York Yankee player.

Stewart believes his broken engagement takes him out of the running for the CEO position at his family’s company, something he earnestly desires. When he gets a flat tire and Dolly helps him change it, a photo of them ends up in the tabloids. 

Stewart asks Dolly to go along with the dating charade and offers to pay her. Dolly reluctantly agrees, knowing that the money will pay for a new roof. Dolly accompanies Stewart to family and business functions, and soon the fake dating scenario becomes real.

As with any romance novel, there comes a time when things go off course, but there is always a happily ever after. The joy is seeing how the author gets there, and Annabel Monaghan writes with humor and heart, and her characters are always people with whom you want to spend time.

Single Girls by John Searles- A

Published by Mariner Books

Hardcover, $30, 384 pages

Road Trip by Mary Kay Andrews- A

Published by St. Martin’s Press

Hardcover, $30, 448 pages

Dolly All The Time by Annabel Monaghan- A

Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Trade paperback, $20, 400 pages

Some Great Reads For Labor Day Weekend

Reprinted from auburnpub.com 

We’re in the dog days of summer as they call it. What to read as we try to make it last as long as we possibly can? This month’s Book Report has some suggestions.

Summer is a time for weddings, and Alison Espach’s novel The Wedding People is set at a fancy Newport, Rhode Island resort. Phoebe has checked into the Cornwall Inn not realizing that she is the only person there not attending the wedding of Lila and Gary, two people she doesn't know. 

Phoebe has come to the Cornwall Inn intending to end her life. Her husband left her for another woman after several unsuccessful attempts to have a baby, her career as a literature adjunct professor at a St. Louis college is stalled, and her cat died.

As Phoebe is preparing to end her life, Lila, the bride, bursts into her hotel room. Lila is a whirlwind, talking a mile a minute about her wedding problems, demanding to know why Phoebe is at the hotel. When Phoebe explains her situation, Lila is furious that Phoebe’s plan would wreck Lila’s perfect wedding.

Lila has planned each and every detail of the week-long wedding celebration. She is a bridezilla, yet she opens up to Phoebe and they form an interesting bond that ends up with Phoebe becoming the maid of honor.

We meet the members of the wedding party and the family, and Phoebe even has a flirtation with a handsome man in the hot tub. The characters in The Wedding People are so well-drawn, especially Lila, who in lesser hands could have been a one-dimensional character, but the author gives her such depth.

The writing is filled with wit, and the subject of depression is dealt with sensitivity. I enjoyed The Wedding People immensely. Read With Jenna chose it as her August read and it was a Book of the Month option.

Read With Jenna’s July pick was Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark. This one is a much darker story. Patch is a young boy with one eye, being raised by an alcoholic mom, and picked on by bullies.  

When he sees the girl he has a crush on being attacked by a man, he rushes in to save her and the man takes Patch instead. Patch’s best friend Saint, a young girl who is a bit of an outcast as well, is determined to find out what happened to her best friend no matter the cost.

Saint hounds the local police, who are stymied in their investigation into this and other missing girls in the area. The local police chief is devastated by Patch’s disappearance.

All The Colors of the Dark continues through the next 20 years, combining a missing person mystery with a serial killer thriller with a friendship and love story. Serial killer stories are not a genre I enjoy reading, but All the Colors of the Dark captured me with relationship between Patch and Saint, and the several twists and turns before the ultimate resolution. It was also a Book fo the Month selection.

If you can’t wait for the next installment of Bridgerton on Netflix, give Eloisa James’ new historical romance Viscount in Love a read. Dominic is a viscount engaged to a suitable young woman. When he finds himself guardian to his young niece and nephew after his brother and sister-in-law tragically die, his fiancee up and elopes with another man. 

Dominic finds himself attracted to his ex-fiancee’s sister Torie. Torie enjoys spending time with the children, but she fears that Dom wants a nanny and she is determined to marry someone who loves her.

Torie is illiterate, seemingly incapable of learning how to read, but she can remember everything she has heard. She is very intelligent and Dominic is impressed with her. Can he convince Torie that he loves her and that they should be together?

James writes spicy, witty, literate romance novels, and even though you know how things will turn out, the fun is in getting there. 

If thrillers are your favorite, Chris Bohjalian’s The Princess of Las Vegas is a good one. It tells the story of a Princess Diana impersonator in Las Vegas who finds herself in the middle of an organized crime conspiracy of murder involving cryptocurrency. 

When her estranged sister shows up with a new boyfriend and the teenage girl she adopted, things really get messy- and dangerous. You’ll race through this one, and Bohjalian manages to make each of his books unique, something you can’t say for many mystery/thriller writers. 

Happy Labor Day!

Time To Refill Your Beach Reads

Reprinted from auburnpub.com:

Time to Refill Your Beach Reads

Summer is going by much too fast and it’s time again to refill your beach reads. I’ve got some wonderful suggestions for you to toss in your beach bag as you head out on vacation or just to your front porch.

Kate Quinn’s WWII historical novels are popular (The Alice Network,The Rose Code). Her new novel The Briar Club takes place during the Cold War. Set in a boarding house in Washington D.C. run by an unpleasant widow and her teenage son, the story begins with two dead bodies in the house. 

We flash back and forth in time as the story is told by the women who rent rooms in the house. Each of the women have secrets they don’t want known, and each of their stories are intriguing. Quinn does a remarkable job keeping each woman’s voice distinct as they band together through the dramatic climax. Quinn is in top form here.

Liz Moore’s new mystery novel The God of The Woods also tells a story from differing points of view. When thirteen year-old Barbara Van Laar goes missing from her Adirondack summer camp, people fear that it is a repeat of an incident from fourteen years ago- her nine year-old brother disappeared from the same area, never to be found. 

Like Kate Quinn’s book, the story shifts back and forth in times, and Moore does a masterful job keeping everything straight in the reader’s mind with chapter headings that indicate the timeline. The story is propulsive, and the reader feels dropped right into the Adirondack camp. Although this book is almost 500 pages, you’ll fly through it as you wait to discover what happened to Barbara- and her brother.

For something on the lighter side, take a trip to Italy in Steven Rowley’s The Guncle Abroad. Five years later we meet with our friends from the delightful The Guncle. Patrick’s resumed his acting career, and he is charged with accompanying his young niece and nephew to Italy where their widowed father is marrying a wealthy heiress.

The children want Patrick to convince their father not to get married, and Patrick is stuck in the middle- and unhappy that the children have taken a shine to their oh-so-cool future step-aunt. Once again the humor and love shine in this delightful story, and it had me laughing out loud at Patrick’s caustic comments. 

Kirsten Miller’s Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books also has humor at its core, albeit a more satirical type. Lula Dean is determined to make a name for herself by starting a  campaign to rid her small Southern town of “inappropriate” books from the public library. (The fact that the town’s librarian Beverly is her archenemy has nothing to do with it.)

Lula opens a Little Library in her front yard and fills it with wholesome books from her own library for people to read. Unbeknownst to her, Beverly’s daughter has been swapping out Lula’s books for books on the “banned list”, but putting the covers from Lula’s books on the banned books. Now when people choose one of Lula’s books, they are getting something very different. 

Lula is thrilled with the popularity of her Little Library, and the people of the town are changed in profound and delightful ways as they read books that expand their minds and souls. This one is a funny and timely read.

For nonfiction fans, Sloane Crosley’s memoir Grief Is For People tells the story of two events that changed Sloane deeply. First, she returns to her New York City apartment to discover that someone has broken in and stolen her jewelry. Sloane becomes obsessed with trying to discover who stole her jewelry, going to extreme lengths to get answers. 

One month later, her former boss, mentor, and good friend goes into his barn and hangs himself. Sloane is devastated by this, and shares the story of her relationship with her friend over the years, looking for answers as to what happened to him.

Her writing is piercing and moving, and she makes us feel like we knew her friend almost as well as she did, sharing his idiosyncrasies in vivid style.

Fans of yacht rock music will enjoy Michael McDonald’s memoir What a Fool Believes, co-written with his friend, actor Paul Reiser. McDonald is best known for being an intregal member of the Doobie Brothers, but his journey through the music scene of the 70s and 80s is so much more, and a terrific and sometimes terrifying, ride to take with him. 

Enjoy the rest of summer, may it slow down.

Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel

Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel
Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books ISBN 9781501176418
Hardcover, $27, 416 pages

Sometimes you read a book at the exact right time, and Amy Poeppel's new novel, Musical Chairs, is that book. I enjoyed her first two novels, Small Admissions, about a young woman who works as admissions officer at a fancy Manhattan school. n (My review is here).I loved her second one, Limelight, about a mom who moves with her family from Dallas to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where she ends up accidentally becoming an assistant to a Justin Beiber-like character as he prepares for his Broadway debut. It was hilarious and sweet.

Her newest novel, Musical Chairs, features a protagonist closer to my age, which is refreshing. Bridget Stratton is preparing for a sexy summer with her boyfriend at her summer home in Litchfield, Connecticut. But like all great plans, this one falls apart.

First her boyfriend breaks up with her on the advice of his ex-wife. (She dodged a bullet there.) Her adult daughter moves in for the summer after she quits her finance job in Hong Kong, her married adult son shows up without his newlywed husband, and her best friend Will meets and falls in love with a woman from town.

Her house is rundown and now it is overflowing with roommates. Her father Edward, a famous classical composer and musician, lives close by and decides that he is getting remarried to his deceased wife's best friend, his best friend's widow.

Will and Bridget also have to find a new member for their classical trio after the young violinist they had hoped would help them revive their group and career quits before she starts. When Will suggests their only hope is their original violinist who ditched them and became famous in his own right, Bridget fears a secret from her past will surface.

Every character in Musical Chairs is so fabulous, even the secondary ones. Jackie, the young city woman from a much different background who becomes Bridget's dad's assistant, has so many great lines as a fish out of water, wondering how she got here with these crazy people. (The scene when she gets drunk at Bridget's house is priceless.)

Madge, Edward's housekeeper and cook, "a plump, short, direct woman who wasn't into small talk" keeps things running smoothly and is delightful, doling out kindness and orders in equal doses.

There are so many great scenes in this wonderful novel, and when someone compares a scene to a British Drawing Room Farce, I had to smile in recognition, as that was my very thought. (Although, given that it takes place in New England and a barn plays a major part, maybe it should be called an American Barn Farce?)

You don't need to enjoy classical music to like this book (I am not), but if you are an aficionado, you will get an extra layer of enjoyment out of it. I absolutely adored Musical Chairs, and even thinking about it now brings a smile to my face at a time when we could all use a little joy. This is a book I will return to again and again when I want to forget the troubles of the world. It will make you laugh out loud. I give it my highest recommendation.

Summer Reads

Reprinted from the Citizen: (Click on the titles under the photos for more information on each book.)

With Memorial Day in the rear view mirror it’s time to gear up for summer, and that means it’s time for my annual Summer Reading Recommendations List. Since most of us are staying close to home, it’s a good time to let books take us away.

There are some authors who are closely associated with summer, and Mary Kay Andrews is one. In her latest novel, Hello, Summer, Conley has to move back to her beach town hometown in the Florida Panhandle when the news agency she was going to work for went out of business. Her sister publishes the local newspaper, owned by their family for four generations but in danger of folding. When Conley comes upon a car accident where the local Congressman is killed, she “kicks up dirt” and angers some townspeople. I always wanted to be Brenda Starr, so this book was perfect for me. 

Hello, Summer 

Elin Hilderbrand is another “summer author”, and this year’s entry is “28 Summers”. It’s similar to the movie Same Time, Next Year, about two married people who meet every year to carry on an affair over 28 summers, but things become more complicated as the years roll on.

28 Summers

If you like a good mystery to dig into, Hannah Mary McKinnon’s Sister Dear is about a young woman who discovers her father is not her biological father. She insinuates herself into her beautiful, wealthy, successful half-sister’s life, befriending her and working for her and her husband. The ending of this novel is a corker, you will gasp out loud. 

Sister Dear

If you’re a fan of the Lifetime Movie Channel, Kimberly McCreight’s psychological thriller A Good Marriage is perfect for you. When a woman ends up murdered after a neighborhood party, the secrets of all the married couples bubble up to the surface. It’s a twisty mystery where you don’t know whom to trust.

A Good Marriage

Curtis Sittenfeld imagines what life would have been like for Hillary Rodham if she had not married Bill Clinton in her novel Rodham. There may be no one public figure over the last thirty years who has had more written about them, and Sittenfeld’s fascinating story, divided into three sections- The Catch, The Woman, The Front Runner-, really takes off in the last section. 

Rodham

For those who like to follow popular book clubs, Reese Witherspoon’s May choice-  Alka Joshi's The Henna Artist- takes you away to 1950s India, where a young henna artist strives for a better life and ends up caring for a young sister she didn’t know about. It will transport you.

The Henna Artist

Jenna Bush Hager chose Elizabeth Wetmore’s debut novel, Valentine recently, and that book also transports you, but to 1970s Odessa, Texas. When a young Mexican teen is brutally attacked, it affects the women in the town. The characters are compelling, and the story is powerful. 

Valentine

With so much time on our hands, we’ve been binge-watching television shows. To go along with that, there are two new books about situation comedies. Marc Freeman’s Modern Family has interviews with the actors, producers, and writers from the show that just ended its highly successful eleven season run. 

Modern Family

Andy Greene’s The Office- The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000’s also has interviews with actors, writers, and producers of the iconic show. He goes season by season, and does a deep dive into one episode for each of the nine seasons of the show. This is a must-read for fans of the show.

The Office

Father’s Day is coming up this month, and Dad may appreciate a good book this year. Tom Papa’s You’re Doing Great! is a collection of essays from this hilarious comedian, who also has a new Netflix comedy special with the same name. Fans of Jim Gaffigan should give it a try.

You're Doing Great!

If Dad is a true crime fan, Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge’s book, Hunting Whitey follows the FBI agents who successfully tracked down one of the most wanted fugitives in American history, Boston mobster Whitey Bulger. 

Hunting Whitey

There are some wonderful books now out in paperback as well- Lisa Grunwald’s Time After Time a beautiful love story with a time travel aspect set in Grand Central Station in New York City in the 1940s, Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes , about two Irish families who live next to each other and are devastated by a tragedy, and Kate Mulgrew’s How to Forget, a memoir about the life of her parents, and caring for her mother with Alzheimer’s. 

How to Forget

Time After Time

Ask Again, Yes

Happy Summer to all!