We're All Damaged by Matthew Norman

We're All Damaged by Matthew Norman
Published by Little A ISBN 9781503933385
Trade paperback, $14.95, 223 pages

A few years back I read Matthew Norman's hilarious novel, Domestic Violets, which made my list of the Most Compelling Books of 2011. It tells the story of a man stuck in a soulless copywriting job, the son of a Norman Mailer-like father, married to a woman he fears will leave him, father to a young daughter.

He is writing a novel, but he will always be compared to his successful father, an alcoholic with a wandering eye who comes to stay with his son. It is a family story, a workplace comedy (ala The Office), and so much more.

Norman's newest novel is We're All Damaged about Andy, a young man who has fled to NYC from Omaha after his wife tells him she wants a divorce. He is living in a hovel, working as a bartender, with a cat his only friend.

When Andy's mom calls him to tell him he must come home to Omaha because his beloved grandfather is dying, Andy reluctantly goes. He hasn't been home since his divorce and doesn't want to face his ex-wife, whom he still loves.

Once again the cast of characters is terrific. Andy's mom is a right-wing radio host whose latest rants against legalizing gay marriage have caught the attention of Fox News and may result in a gig on the network. Dad is a retired accountant who spends his day working on his motorcycle and shooting pesky squirrels with a paintgun.

Andy's brother Jim is a stereotypical finance guy who thinks he's Master of the Universe and every interaction with Andy is fraught with macho sibling brutality. Neal was Andy's best friend and is the twin brother of his ex-wife. Andy's ex-wife already has moved in her hunky paramedic boyfriend and wants nothing to do with Andy.

All this depresses Andy, and when he goes to see his grandpa, he meets a mysterious woman named Daisy who is passing herself off as his sibling so she can visit his grandpa. What is her story?

Daisy makes it her mission to bring Andy out of his funk, and she succeeds to some extent. She refuses to let Andy hide in his old bedroom, and forces him to face reality.

We're All Damaged has its humorous moments, like the three gay men who "prank" Andy's mom by throwing hundreds of Ken dolls on her lawn and glitterbombing her car. The leader of the group has a hilarious scene with Andy, who describes his meeting with them by saying he wonders "if this is what Tupac felt like right before the bullets started whizzing."

Andy constantly watches a YouTube video of an epic best-man fail that when explained later in the story is sad and funny at the same time. It becomes a crucial element of the story.

Norman is a somewhat more poignant this time around, as when he says maybe "all marriages end in a box in the basement" as he goes through all of the detritus of his former married life. His characters (Daisy, his mom, Neal) are multi-dimensional, not easy to put in a box and I appreciate that in a novel.

I love novels that give me insight into the male psyche and We're All Damaged certainly fills that bill. Andy has quickly become one of my favorite fictional characters, one I root for to get it together. I was also happy to see the shout-out to Curtis Violet from Domestic Violets. It made me smile so!

I highly recommend We're All Damaged, for the terrific characters and engrossing storyline. I also liked the setting of Omaha, we get a real sense of place there in this novel. If you are a fan of Jonathan Tropper, you'll love Matthew Norman.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Matthew Norman's tour. The rest of the tour stops are here:

Matthew Norman’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS

Wednesday, June 1st: Book Chatter

Thursday, June 2nd: Bookchikdi

Friday, June 3rd: Books a la Mode – author guest post

Monday, June 6th: 5 Minutes for Books

Tuesday, June 7th: Bewitched Bookworms

Wednesday, June 8th: Lavish Bookshelf

Thursday, June 8th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Monday, June 13th: A Bookish Affair

Monday, June 13th: Kahakai Kitchen

Tuesday, June 14th: Thought on This ‘n That

Wednesday, June 15th: Write Meg

Thursday, June 16th: Good Girl Gone Redneck

Monday, June 20th: Worth Getting In Bed For

Wednesday, June 22nd: Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers

Matthew Norman's website is here.

Weekend Cooking- Cravings by Chrissy Teigen

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Cravings by Chrissy Teigen
Published by Clarkson Potter ISBN 9781101903919
Hardcover, $29.99, 235 pages

Chrissy Teigen is a supermodel married to singer John Legend, co-host of the lifestyle television show FABLife and Instagram and Twitter superstar. She is also hilarious, down-to-earth and loves to eat. She doesn't just eat the supermodel salads either.

If you have ever seen her cook on any television show, you would know that she likes normal-people food. So it only makes sense that her first cookbook, Cravings, features recipes that most people would enjoy.

Teigen's mom is Thai, so she has a lot of recipes for Thai food and food that features Sriracha hot sauce, one of her favorites. In addition to recipes, Cravings has commentary from Teigen, told in her conversational tone (which includes a lot of swearing, so be warned). Reading Cravings makes you feel like you are in her kitchen with her, cooking up a storm and laughing all the way.

Her chapters aren't your usual ones either; she has Breakfast All Day, Thai Mom, Sh*T on Toast (pictures of things she likes to put on toast which all look delicious) and Things That Intimidate People But Shouldn't among them.

Here are some things I loved about this book:

• She doesn't like restaurants that don't know the difference between hash browns and home fries
• Her French Toast Casserole with Salted Frosted Flakes- oh yeah, I'm trying that one
• When she made chicken soup with her dad, she'd butter saltine crackers to accompany it
• She actually likes airport food- specifically LAX's Kogi Korean Truck inside the Delta terminal, Cat Cora's meatballs at SFO, Salt Lick ribs at Austin
• The cute photos of her and John

There are so many recipes that I want to try- an updated Cheesy JalapenoTuna Casserole with Potato Chip Topping, Sweet Potato Gnocci with Brown Butter Sage Sauce, and Steak Bites with Melty Blue Cheese Butter are just a few.

The book is beautiful, with thick stock paper and lots of full-page color photos. This is the kind of cookbook you'll want to read for pleasure as well as for the recipes, and if you're a fan of Chrissy Teigen, you'll be pleased. I recommend it.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Published by Penguin Random House ISBN 9781594205712
Trade paperback, $16, 320 pages

I'd heard so much about Celeste Ng's debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, and it ended up on so many year-end Best of lists in 2014, I'm not sure why it took me so long to read it.

The story of family in 1970's small town of Ohio, Dad James is a college professor of Asian decent who teaches history at a small school, American Mom Marilyn was his student who deferred her dreams to raise her three children.

Nathan is the oldest, and Lydia is a little younger, the golden child, the apple of her father's eye. Mom pushes Lydia to study hard and become the success she never got to be. James wants Lydia to be popular.

Lydia gets all of her parents' attention, leaving Nathan and younger sister Hannah to their own devices. James gets accepted to a good college and is preparing to leave when Lydia disappears. Her body is found in the lake, and her parents are convinced that she was murdered because she was afraid of the water and wouldn't have gotten in a boat on her own.

Nathan believes that their neighbor, his classmate Jack, killed her. Hannah saw Lydia leave the house that night, but tells no one.

As the story progresses, we see how grief is overwhelming the Lee family. Marilyn falls apart, staying in Lydia's room all day crying and sleeping. Nathan feels anger and guilt, his plan to escape the home he hates now in jeopardy.

We get the backstory to the Lee family, including the time when Marilyn left the family for awhile. Her absence had long-lasting repercussions for the entire family. The events that led up to Lydia's death are seen through her, Nathan and Hannah's eyes.

There are so many themes here- the stifling of a woman's dreams, lack of honest family communication, the difficulty of being 'the other' in a small homogenous community, the danger of secrets and how an event in a family can have long-last consequences.

Everything I Never Told You is a heartbreaking novel, so beautifully and achingly told by a master storyteller. Watching this family fall apart will bring the reader to tears. It deserves every accolade available and I highly recommend it.

Erin McHugh at Barnes & Noble

Political Suicide By Erin McHugh
Published by Pegasus Books ISBN 9781605989785
Hardcover, $26.95, 256 pages

In a political season that no one could have seen coming, Erin McHugh has written the perfect book to accompany all the craziness- Political Suicide- Missteps, Peccadilloes, Bad Calls, Backroom Hijinx, Sordid Pasts, Rotten Breaks, And Just Plain Dumb Mistakes In The Annals Of American Politics.

McHugh spoke at Barnes & Noble 86th St. store in Manhattan a few weeks ago, the day after Ted Cruz dropped out the Presidential race, a week after he chose Carly Fiorina as his imaginary Vice-Presidential running mate. She introduced herself by saying "for those of you who don't know me, from Monday to Tuesday, I was briefly Ted Cruz's Secretary of State", which elicited huge laughs from the crowd.

Erin McHugh

Although we think this year's circus atmosphere is unusual, McHugh's book belies that fact. She read a few pieces from the book, starting with Robert Potter, a Congressman from North Carolina who castrated not one, but two men- a minister and a young boy, both of whom he believed were having an affair with his wife. In the South, castrating someone is called "potterizing".

She spoke of Marion Zioncheck, a Washington state Congressman who has the distinction of being the only sitting congressperson sent to an asylum. (I'm sure some citizens have other nominations for this category.)

Rita Crundwell committed the largest municipal fraud we never heard of, stealing over $53 million in her position as comptroller and treasurer of Dixon, Illinois, Ronald Reagan's hometown. It took her 30 years, and while she was stealing from the town to fund her horse farm and expensive clothes, furs and jewelry, the town literally fell apart. Roads didn't get paved, police cars went unrepaired. This one shocked me.

Familiar scandals like Senator Bob Packwood and Congressman Wilbur Mills sexual escapades were recounted, and although we have had some more recent scandals, like the Anthony Weiner sexting incident, McHugh's book features incidents that have already completed their story. We'll have to wait for the sequel to hear about those other ones.

In the lively Q&A section of the program, McHugh talked about the huge amount of research she did for this, starting with lists on Google and then researching many hours at the library. When asked what the standards of conduct are today versus history, McHugh replied that today's standards are low.

McHugh bemoaned the fact that people seem to have no manners anymore in the political arena. "They go one more step and one more step and next thing you know, you're talking about your member" in a national debate for President.

The media and the 24-hour news cycle contributes to this course discourse, and with the 2016 Presidential race gearing up, Erin McHugh's Political Suicide is the perfect book to pick up to remind yourself that our nation has survived political craziness before, hopefully we can yet again.

The short chapters make it an easy read, and political junkies will want to add this fun book to their collection. I highly recommend it.

McHugh also has two other timely books- Like My Father Always Said for Father's Day and Like My Teacher Always Said, which makes a great teacher's gift. You can find them here and here.

Weekend Cooking- Three Recipes From Marlene Koch

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

A few years back I picked up Marlene Koch's Eat What You Love Everyday. The cookbook is filled with simple recipes that cut fat, sugar and calories but not the taste. I pulled out the book and her followup, Eat More of What You Love, to make a healthy dinner this week.

We've been eating a lot of takeout lately, so I wanted to eat something a little healthier. My husband loves chicken fried steak, and Marlene has a Chicken Chicken Fried Steak with Cream Gravy that looked like it would fit the bill in Eat More of What You Love.

In her Menus section of the book, she paired this with Sour Cream and Onion Smashed Potatoes in her Sunday Dinner Southern-Style menu, and I found a 10 Minute Peanut Butter Pretzel Pie for dessert in her first book. I added roasted asparagus and we had ourselves a delicious meal.

Koch uses ingredients you would generally have on hand, like onion and garlic powder, and since I had buttermilk in the frig, the chicken dish would be a good way to use it up. I only had to buy corn flakes for the breading and fat-free half-and-half for the cream gravy.

Chicken Chicken Fried Steak from the book- mine didn't look as pretty

Cauliflower is mixed with the potatoes, and even though I had never made cauliflower mashed potatoes, we eat them at restaurants and love them. This dish turned out fabulous, and we ate the leftovers the next night.

Although the Peanut Butter Pie is easy to make, it takes more than 10 minutes to make as it has to freeze for two hours. But it was worth the wait; we ate the leftovers on that all week with no complaints!

My husband loved the meal, the chicken was crispy and juicy, and even though the kitchen looked a little disheveled, this meal was a definite keeper. I know that Koch has a new cookbook out and I will be looking for it, as well as pulling more great, light recipes from the two I already have.

Peanut Butter Pie from the book

10 Minute Peanut Butter Pie
3 cups light, no-sugar-added vanilla ice cream, slightly softened (I used Edy's)
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1 chocolate or Oreo pre-made pie crust
1 tablespoon sugar-fee chocolate ice cream topping
1/3 cup roughly crushed pretzels
1 cup light whipped topping (optional)

Directions: I a medium bowl, combine ice cream and peanut butter until well mixed. Spoon mixture into the crust and smooth the top. Drizzle the filling with ice cream topping, and sprinkle pretzels over the top.

Freeze for at least 2 hours before serving. Let pie sit at room temperature for 5 minutes before cutting and garnish with whipped topping if desired.

Weekend Cooking- Breakfast Treats

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Last weekend my husband had a conference at the Ritz-Carlton resort at Laguna Niguel in California. The views were spectacular, and it is located near a public beach where lots of surfers hang out. They all look like birds in the water, hanging out looking for a wave.

My breakfast view

I had breakfast at Raya, which has has huge windows overlooking the ocean. It is a spectacular view and what a way to start the day. Since it was California, I had the Breakfast Tacos of course. The tacos were soft flour tortillas filled with shredded hash brown potatoes, bacon, scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, and pico de gallo. A side of black beans with queso fresco and guacamole accompanied this delightful dish.

The breakfast tacos were delicious

We enjoyed lunch at 180Blu, an outdoor terrace overlooking the ocean. We shared the nachos, which had cheese, shredded chicken, chorizo, jalapenos and fresno chile peppers. The nachos were the perfect size to share and the view was even better.

Our lunch view

Dinner was at their steakhouse, EnoSteak. We were not pleased with the dinner. There were three of us and dinner came to $400, and that was only with two glasses of wine total for the table. We all ordered the Wedge Salad, and we were served a wedge of lettuce with the core intact. I found that strange. The salad had chopped bacon, blue cheese crumbles, chopped red onion and just a scant tablespoon of a very thin buttermilk dressing. The salad really needed more dressing.

Two people at our table ordered the nine ounce beef tenderloin, and I ordered the nine ounce strip steak. The steaks were fine, done to medium as we asked, but all three steaks looked exactly alike to me, which I found odd as they had tenderloin and I had strip steak. That perplexed me.

We skipped dessert, as there didn't seem to be anything on a rather limited menu that appealed to us. The service was fine, and even though we are used to paying Manhattan prices for dinner, we thought that $68 for the steak alone was pretty pricy. I can't really say I would recommend EnoSteak.

This morning my sons took us to brunch for a belated Mother's Day celebration. We went to Uva, a lovely local restaurant that specializes in Italian food. We each got the brunch special, a brunch entree, side dish and a cocktail for $19.50 per person.

I chose the chocolate crepes with nutella filling, topped with whipped cream, a side of sausage and a Fragosa- prosecco with fragioli wild strawberry liqueur. Brunch was delicious and we ate in the garden area. The restaurant opened at 11am and the place was full within ten minutes. I enjoyed the company even more than the brunch.

Chocolate nutella filled crepes

I hope you all had a great week. I missed the Book Expo this year, as it was in Chicago and after traveling to California, another trip in the same week wasn't in the cards. I did follow BEA on social media and it looked like another great year. We'll see you all in NYC next May!

New in Paperback- The Santangelos by Jackie Collins

The Santangelos by Jackie Collins
Published by St. Martin's Paperback ISBN 9781250048240
Mass Market Paperback, 624 pages, $9.99

Sadly, the world lost Jackie Collins last year and she will be greatly missed. I had the pleasure of meeting her at a book signing a few years ago and she was such a joy! She spoke about her career and her life and she made you feel like a dear friend as she signed your book.

Her last novel ties up loose ends for her best protagonist, Lucky Santangelo in The Santangelos. I have been reading about Lucky Santangelo and her family, friends and enemies since Chances was published back in 1981.

 Collins is an expert at creating a perfectly blended cocktail of sex, ambition, drugs, alcohol, mayhem and murder, and The Santangelos continues in her winning tradition. She manages to create several storylines that you know are going to intersect at some point and just explode, like cars on a collision course, but getting to that point keeps you turning the pages.

Lucky is still running her fabulous Vegas hotel, and still happily married to filmmaker husband Lennie. They are a great couple, who compliment each other's strengths and balance out each other's weaknesses.

Lucky is waiting for a visit from her beloved father Gino, who has moved to Palm Springs with his new wife. Lucky's son Bobby has just opened up another successful nightclub in Chicago, and 18 year-old daughter Max is in Europe partying and trying to get a modeling career going.

As usual, there are a few bad guys who want to cause problems for Lucky. A Middle Eastern king vows vengeance, holding Lucky responsible for his son's death, and when Bobby is framed for a murder and someone Lucky loves is gunned down, Lucky goes into fifth gear to find out who is targeting her family.

We see several characters pop up here from previous books- former child star Willow Price, mega movie star Billy who once loved young Max, Bobby's business partner M.J., and his girlfriend Assistant District Attorney Denver Jones- among others. I particularly enjoyed the funeral scene when many previous characters made cameo appearances.

You know what you are getting in Jackie Collins' Lucky books- lots of sex scenes, opulent homes, behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories, fabulous clothes, great parties, drugs, really bad guys, violence and loyalty- and that's what makes it so much fun.

Lucky is a terrific character, a strong-willed, ambitious, hard-working, smart woman who loves her family and friends and would do anything for them. And that's a good thing for her family and friends, because they seem to need her help a lot.

The Santangelos is a fabulous book to while away the days under the sun getting your Vitamin D. And even though it's 600 pages, you will tear through it quickly. The good news is that after you finish The Santangelos, you can start with Chances and read the entire Lucky Santangelo canon if you haven't already.

You don't need to have read any of the Lucky series to enjoy this one, Collins gives you enough information in this book that you aren't lost, but those who have read the Lucky books will get an extra level of enjoyment.

(Warning- there are graphic sex scenes in this book. If that is not your thing, don't read this one.)

Jackie Collins's website is here, and you can read an excerpt from The Santangelos there.

I met Jackie Collins  a few years ago at Barnes & Noble

Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman

Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062083470
Hardcover, $26.99, 368 pages

Laura Lippman writes mystery novels that are not only page-turners, they are thought-provoking and very well written. Her latest stand-alone novel is Wilde Lake, set in Baltimore as most of her books are.

Lu Brant has just been elected the first female state's attorney in Howard County. She is a single mother of eight-year-old twins, Justin and Penelope, after her wealthy husband died of heart attack. Lu moved back to her childhood home to live with her father, a former state's attorney.

The story has two time settings- the present day and when Lu was an eight-year-old girl. Lu's mother died one week after Lu was born, so she never knew her mother. Her brother AJ is eight years older, and the golden boy at his high school.

As AJ and his friends were celebrating their upcoming high school graduation, three brothers crashed the party and accused AJ's friend of ruining their sister. A fight broke out, one young man died and AJ's friend was seriously injured.

In the present, Lu is proceeding to prosecute the murder of a woman in her apartment. A homeless man is accused of the brutal crime and as the investigation proceeds, the case looks like a slam-dunk for Lu until she digs deeper and finds a connection to an old incident.

A woman has also come to Lu claiming that she has information about a famous murder conviction Lu's father had obtained thirty years ago. The woman said that she was the convicted man's alibi but Lu's father ignored her all those years ago.

Lippman has said that this story was inspired by Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. It does have several of the same elements- a young girl worships her honorable lawyer father, a trial that envelops the entire town- and adds many more intriguing ones.

Lippman brings her characteristic thoughtfulness to the societal change in attitudes about sex and rape over the last thirty years. She also unravels many secrets in the Brant family and among AJ and his group of high school friends. I love a book that keeps me guessing, and Wilde Lake certainly did that. I actually gasped at one sad event late in the book that I didn't see coming.

One thing Lippman excels at is ending the chapter on a sentence that forces you to keep reading, like this one:

"Besides, if Fred wanted to make it personal, there were better, juicer-truer-rumors to spread. He just didn't know where to look."

How can you stop reading there?

The characters in Wilde Lake are fascinating too. From Lu to her father to her brother to even less important ones like AJ's friends Bash and Noel and Teensy, the Brant's housekeeper, all are fully realized people.

Wilde Lake is a literary mystery that will keep the reader guessing as she is compulsively turning the pages. It is a worthy homage to To Kill A Mockingbird, but one that stands on its own as a terrific story. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Laura Lippman's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, May 3rd: Reading Reality

Wednesday, May 4rd: she treads softly

Friday, May 6th: A Bookworm’s World

Monday, May 9th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Tuesday, May 10th: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World

Wednesday, May 11th: Jenn’s Bookshelves

Thursday, May 12th: bookchickdi

Friday, May 13th: 5 Minutes For Books

Monday, May 16th: Back Porchervations

Tuesday, May 17th: From the TBR Pile

Thursday, May 19th: Luxury Reading

On Broadway- She Loves Me

I was so pleased to see that the Broadway revival of the musical She Loves Me is nominated for eight Tony awards this year, including Best Actress (musical) for Laura Benanti, Best Actor (musical) for Zachary Levi, Best Supporting Actress (musical) for Jane Krakowski and Best Revival of a Musical.

The show is just such a lovely production, and the performances from all are just spot-on. Benanti and Krakowsi are previous Tony winners, but this is only Levi's second Broadway musical and he is a marvel. Those who only know him from his NBC TV show Chuck will be pleasantly surprised by his terrific singing voice.

The show is based on 1937's Parfumerie, and the story has been retold in other forms, such as The Shop Around the Corner and You've Got Mail. Set in a perfume store in 1930's Budapest it tells the story of Georg, who is a salesman in  Maraczek's perfume shop.

Georg (Levi) has a Lonely Hearts correspondence (think Tinder of yore) with a lovely woman who calls him "Dear Friend" in her letters to him. Although they haven't met, Georg is deeply enamored of her.

Amalia (Benanti) comes into the shop looking for a job and shows Georg up in front of the store owner. She is hired and Georg and Amalia spend their time circling each other and clashing.

Amalia also has a Lonely Hearts correspondence with a lovely man she calls "Dear Friend". Yes, unbeknownst to the other, Georg and Amalia are sweethearts by night and competitors by day.

Ilona (Krakowski) is having a relationship with Steven (Gavin Creel), a lothario who juggles more than one woman. Krakowski and Benanti sparkle in this delightful, sweet show and one of the many highlights is their duet of "I Don't Know His Name". Their gorgeous voices blend together in a way that gave me goosebumps.

Levi and Benanti have a fantastic chemistry, whether they are fighting at work or unknowingly falling in love with each other. The audience waits impatiently for them to realize what we already know- they are perfect for each other.

If you are looking for a show that bring a smile to your face, with lots of laughs and wonderful performances, She Loves Me is just the ticket. Discount tickets are available for this show and I highly recommend it.

The website for She Loves Me is here.

New in Paperback- All The Single Ladies by Dorothea Benton Frank

All The Single Ladies  by Dorothea Benton Frank
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks ISBN 9780062132581
Trade paperback, $15.99, 400 pages

One of the great things about summer is that I get to spend some time in South Carolina's Lowcountry when Dorothea Benton Frank's latest novel publishes. Last year's terrific novel All The Single Ladies shows Frank in fine form with wonderful characters in a great story, topped off with Frank's signature one-liners that crack me up and is now available in paperback.

Lisa St. Clair is a divorced nurse, struggling to make do with a part-time job working at an adult home, sad that her 18-year-old daughter has moved to Colorado, where her estranged father has help set her up in her own legal marijuana tourist company.

Lisa has become close to Kathy, fifty-year-old patient who is dying of cancer, as well as the woman's two best friends, Carrie and Suzanne, who hold a constant vigil at her bedside. When Kathy passes away, Lisa, Carrie and Suzanne join forces to clean out Kathy's apartment, and they become closer.

What I liked about this book was that these are women of a certain age, who haven't been lucky in love up to this point, but they don't close themselves off to the possibilities in front of them. They support each other, and when Lisa loses her apartment, Suzanne offers her a room in her grandmother's home near the beach.

Suzanne's grandmother Miss Trudie is an unforgettable character, the kind of grandma we'd all wish to have. She's 99 years-old, sassy, and full of life and advice. I fell in love with Miss Trudie.

Carrie is a thrice-widowed woman, and she is always on the lookout for husband number four. Suzanne owns her floral shop, but she doesn't have time or the inclination to look for a husband. Taking care of Miss Trudie and trying to keep her shop open takes all of her time.

Lisa not only has to deal with her strained relationship with her daughter, but her phone conversations with her parents are hilarious. I can almost see her banging her head against the wall as she tries to get through a call with them.

The friendship these women develop is heartwarming, they support and encourage each other in their individual endeavors. And the men that come into their lives are not stereotypical clueless guys, they feel like real men, trying to do their best for the women they care about.

One of the men even gives a great piece of advice; he tells Lisa that children don't do things to hurt their parents, they don't even consider that their actions have anything to do with their parents. Smart man.

One of the best things about reading Frank's novels is that I can add so many great restaurants to my Charleston Pinterest board. Frank helped me add close to a dozen more, and the Chamber of Commerce of Charleston should send her a big bouquet of flowers because no one encourages more people to visit (and maybe even retire) to that beautiful area.

Grab a beach chair, your best girlfriends, a couple of bottles of Pinot Grigio, and a few copies of All The Single Ladies and make a day of it. Then go to dinner and plan your girls' vacation to Charleston.


Dorothea Benton Frank's website is here.

The Secrets of Flight by Maggie Leffler

The Secrets of Flight  by Maggie Leffler
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062427922
Trade paperback, $15.99, 339 pages

In The Secrets of Flight by Maggie Leffler, Mary Browning is an 87 year-old widow who runs a writing group for senior citizens at her local library. One day, a fifteen year-old young lady named Elyse joins the group after seeing an ad in the newspaper. Elyse is unaware that it is a senior citizens group, but the members were more than happy to welcome the youngster to their group.

Mary and Elyse become friends, and Mary hires Elyse to type up her memoirs for her. Mary has many secrets from the group, from her real name (Miri Lichtenstein) to her former occupation. The group believes that Mary was a book editor in New York City, but in actuality Mary had belonged to the Women's Airforce Service Pilots during WWII, a group of civilian pilots who were trained by the military.

The book us told in two different voices- Mary's and Elyse's- and in two different time periods. I found Miri's story of her time training as a pilot, and her camaraderie with her female pilots to be the more interesting of the two stories.

One of the more interesting anecdotes (which according to the author's notes at the end of the book really happened) involved landing in bad weather. The ladies had to land their planes in a remote area. They found a restaurant in this small town, and of course these strange women, unaccompanied by any men, drew interest from the regulars.

A man came to their table and said that they were trying to guess who these ladies were. The women had been told not to tell anyone who they were, so when the man guessed that they were a baseball team, the ladies readily agreed. (Just like A League of Their Own!)

One of the sadder tales involved a pilot who crashed her plane and perished. The women had to take up a collection to send her body back to the woman's parents. As they were not officially in the armed services, the government would not cover the cost. That made me so sad and angry.

Another aspect of the story that intrigued me concerned the idea of Jewish people hiding their identity. Miri's boyfriend wanted to study medicine, but he had a difficult time getting into medical school because at that time, there was a strict quota for Jewish men in medical school. I had never heard of that, and found it so shocking that in the United States in the 1940's this blatant discrimination existed.

He had to decide whether to hide his identity to achieve his goal, when his relatives had to hide their identity in Europe to avoid being sent to concentration camps. The strain that this decision caused himself and his family was enlightening. (And I have never seen so many people just cut themselves off from family members as in this book.)

Mary had many secrets that she kept from those around her, and when we slowly discover them, it becomes easier to see why Mary was so lonely.

The Secrets of Flight will appeal to fans of The Orphan Train.  Both of the books feature an older woman whose earlier life held a fascination for the teenage girl they befriend. Both books tell of two women of different ages and experiences and how they changed each other.

There is a twist of fate at the end of the story that is hinted at at the beginning. I personally found it to be a little too coincidental, but it does bring the story full circle. I recommend The Secrets of Flight to anyone who enjoys a story about strong women, and who find the time period of WWII interesting. I loved learning about the women flyers.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Maggie Leffler's tour. The rest of the stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, May 3rd: BookNAround

Wednesday, May 4th: Jenn’s Bookshelves

Thursday, May 5th: bookchickdi

Friday, May 6th: Doing Dewey

Friday, May 6th: 100 Pages a Day…Stephanie’s Book Reviews

Tuesday, May 10th: Back Porchervations

Wednesday, May 11th: A Bookish Affair

Thursday, May 12th: Savvy Verse & Wit

Monday, May 16th: Helen’s Book Blog

Tuesday, May 17th: Dreams, Etc.

Thursday, May 19th: Staircase Wit

Monday, May 23rd: Kritters Ramblings

Tuesday, May 24th: Luxury Reading

Wednesday, May 25th: Reading is My Super Power

Thursday, May 26th: Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews

Thursday, May 26th: Ageless Pages Reviews

Friday, May 27th: A Book Geek

Monday, May 30th: Book by Book

Monday, May 30th: Life By Kristen

Thursday, June 2nd: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra

The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
Published by Penguin Random House ISBN 978-0-7704-3643-8
Hardcover, $25, 352 pages

Three years ago I read Anthony Marra's debut novel about people trapped in the Chechen war, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. I could not stop talking about it and recommended to anyone who would listen (and even those who wouldn't). I was thrilled when the critical accolades came in for Marra; he even won a National Book Critics' Circle Award. It is a brilliant book.

Marra's second book is a collection of linked short stories, The Tsar of Love and Techno, set in the USSR. This collection covers a wider range of years and characters, and it is even more brilliant because of that.

Marra starts off strong with The Leopard, a story set in 1937 that drops the reader into an nearly improbable situation, yet one that happened everyday in the Soviet Union. Roman Markin works in the Department of Party Propaganda and Agitation. His job is to erase people who have been determined by the government to be traitors.

He literally erases them- painting over them in photos and paintings. Families are ordered to turn over any evidence that a loved one ever existed to be eliminated. Roman visits his sister-in-law to collect photos of his brother Vaska, her husband who was executed for his religious practices, and to warn her of the dangers of disobeying the government.

Roman also instructs his sister-in-law to take photographs of her son every year in case she is arrested and he is placed in an orphanage. This will make it easier to find him if she is ever released. That fact just floored me.

Roman continues his work daily erasing people from existence. But he began adding something too- he put his dead brother into every painting he censored. He put images of Vaska as a young boy, a teen, an adult, an older man. Every single image he worked on had Vaska in it to atone for Roman's guilt over his brother.

Others people we meet in the collection of stories include Galina, the beautiful granddaughter of a famous ballerina, who deserted her first love to become the wife of a wealthy oil oligarch.  We read of Kolya, her first love who became a soldier and drug dealer, and his brother Alexei who makes a mixtape for his brother to take into war with him.

A painting by a famous Russian artist of a pasture ties the stories together. Roman puts his brother into it, and Kolya ends up spending too much time in the actual pasture under unfortunate circumstances. Many of the characters in the story have a connection to this painting and it is a lifeline to some.

The writing in The Tsar of Love and Techno just stuns. Writing of how people turned their neighbors in to police for any suspected infraction, he says " Our city was small and whispers easily became verdict." That sentence conveys everything about life then and there in nine words.

Other examples are :

"The obvious is only obvious when it happens to someone else."

"I said nothing, and as is often the case with men who possess more power than wisdom, he took my silence for affirmation."

"Wealth announces itself with what's easy to break and impossible to clean." (Talking about Galina's apartment filled with white carpets and expensive chairs and art.)

"To say he felt guilty would ascribe to ethical borders that were lines on a map of a country that no longer existed."

"Uncertainty recalibrated the moral compass to point toward survival."

It took me a week to read The Tsar of Love and Techno because I simply didn't want it to ever end. I would read a story, and then take time to appreciate the writing, the complexity of the story, and what life was like for these people under the Soviet regime.  What it took to survive, the choices people were forced to make when no good choice existed, just crushed me.

This is another masterpiece from Marra, one that proves that he is a force to be reckoned with in literature for a long time. I cannot do his book justice in this review, suffice it to say that The Tsar of Love and Techno knocked me out and is the best book I have read this year, possibly in two years. I give it my highest recommendation.

My review of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is here.

I met Anthony Marra at BEA last year and fangirled to him about A Constellation of Vital Phenemona. He was very gracious but he probably thought I was a little crazy.

Anthony Marra signing book sat BEA 2015

Weekend Cooking- The Breakfast House in Sarasota

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

On our way to spend the morning at the Red Barn Flea Market in Bradenton, my sister-in-law and I stopped at the Breakfast House in Sarasota to fuel up for the day. My husband had eaten there with two friends and he thought his sister would love it.

The Breakfast House is located in a cute little house. The first thing you see when you get to the porch is the collection of jewel-colored rocking chairs. They are so charming and you just want to sit down and set a spell while you're waiting to be seated.

We got there at just the right time because we were ushered right away into the adorable sunny dining room area. There are three different seating areas, all with white tables surrounded by brightly colored chairs. The walls are covered with cheery paintings of flowers that finish the ambiance.

Each table has it's own decoration to match the chair colors. My sister-in-law loves the color purple (just like Prince, may he rest in peace), so we chose the purple table. It had a ceramic duck head, grape salt and pepper shakers and a purple vase.

The Breakfast House is known for their pancakes and we both ordered the daily special- Raspberry White Chocolate Pancakes. You get three huge pancakes in an order (we could have easily shared), and they were as delicious as they were pretty.

The place started to fill up as we were leaving, so we boxed up our leftovers and headed to meet our friend at the Red Barn. It was the perfect start to a terrific day and I recommend a visit to the Breakfast House if you ever find yourself in Sarasota; it's just darling.

Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear

Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear
Published by Harper ISBN 9780062220608
Hardcover, $26.99, 320 pages

The Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear is the only series of books that I have read all the way through. When I was first introduced to the young nurse/psychologist/private investigator and her friends and colleagues in London just before WWI, I was hooked.

I have followed Maisie and company, with all their ups and downs and truly feel like they are friends. Each spring I look forward to catching up with everyone in Maisie's world.

When we left Maisie at the end of book 11, A Dangerous Place, she was returning home to England after a stay in Spain during their civil war. She had suffered two devastating losses and was grieving. It was a very somber and sad story, and we didn't see many of Maisie's friends and family.

Book 12, Journey to Munich brings Maisie back home, trying to rebuild her life. She is living with her best friend Priscilla and Pris' family, who adore Maisie. Soon Maisie is recruited once again to help the British Secret Service.

Maisie agrees to go undercover in Munich to help bring home a British businessman who is being held prisoner by the Germans. The year is 1937 and the Nazi party is growing in power. The man is believed to be in a concentration camp, and Maisie must impersonate his daughter to rescue him.

Times are dangerous in Germany, and another world war is on the horizon. Memories of the horrors of WWI remain in Maisie's mind, and she fears for the future of Europe.

Maisie has also agreed to help find the daughter of another powerful man in England, to convince her to come home. She has a connection to this young lady, one that she would rather forget, yet she agrees to try.

Journey to Munich is a strong entry in the Maisie Dobbs series. Maisie has gone through so much, it's good to see her back on her feet and trying to move her life forward. The storyline is interesting, and as always, Winspear has done her research into what life was like at that time, in that place.

We get to see more of the gang- Pris, Sandra and my favorite Billy- and the end of the book the readers are rewarded with the possibility that Maisie and company will be back together working to solve cases.

As England moves closer to war once again, I expect that the next books in the series will deal with this. England lost so many young men in WWI, an entire generation, that the prospect of going through that again is a frightening one.

Maisie Dobbs is an incredibly strong literary heroine, and these books are great reads for young women and for anyone who enjoys historical mysteries. For a woman in her era to do the things that Maisie does with such strength, compassion and intelligence is a wonderful example for girls. She has her flaws too, and that makes her human.

I give Journey to Munich my highest recommendation and it is one of the best books in the series.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Jacqueline Winspear's tour. The rest of Jacqueline's stops are here.

Jacqueline Winspear's website is here.

Three Books That Deserve Attention

Reprinted from the Citizen:

There are so many books published each year that unless the author is an established one (James Patterson, Mary Higgins Clark, etc.), it may be hard to cut through the clutter and find an audience. I found three recent books by not-so-famous authors that deserve attention.

Maureen Sherry worked on Wall Street and she uses her experiences in her novel Opening Belle. Sherry takes us into this breakneck-paced, testosterone-fueled world of high finance through the character of Isabelle. 

Isabelle is married to Bruce, who is content to be a part-time stay-at-home dad, part-time not-exactly-sure-what-he-does-for-a-living. They have three young children, and even though Isabelle works full-time, she is still the one responsible for grocery shopping, Christmas present shopping, and arranging playdates for the children. Bruce goes to the gym. And they have a nanny.

The trading floor of the company Isabelle works for is filled with men who behave appallingly towards the female traders and analysts and heaven help the poor female assistants and administrative employees, it is worse for them.

And when some of the women working at the firm decide they have had enough, Isabelle has to decide whether to jeopardize her position at the firm and her family’s financial security to join with them.

Isabelle works hard and she is a great analyst. She has a luncheon meeting with the CEO of her biggest client and who shows up with him but Henry, the man who was once her fiance`until she found out that he was dating another woman just weeks before their wedding.

Sherry never signed a non-disclosure form when she left her job on Wall Street, so “Opening Belle” is filled with little tidbits and stories that you just know ring true, and I bet that some of the people who used to work with her recognize some of the events and characters. They are just too good to not be true.

Opening Belle is fast-paced read, and one that you will devour like a eating an entire bag of chips. You’ll root for Isabelle to get everything that she deserves.

Another contemporary novel is Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s The Nest, also set in New York City. The Plumb children are all grown adults who are waiting for the day when they can get their hands on a trust fund set up by their father. 

Each has different plans for the money. Jack needs the money to replace funds he spent behind his husband’s back; he mortgaged their beach cottage to keep his small antiques shop from closing.

Melody is counting on the money to send her two daughters to a good college and to keep from losing the home she has created and loved for so long. Sister Bea wants to quit her job and finish the novel she has started.

But all their plans go up in smoke when brother Leo has a car accident with young lady who is not his wife and she is seriously injured. Their mother gives Leo the money to pay off the young lady, and now the siblings must convince Leo to pay them back. Easy, yes?

Well, not so easy. Leo is a selfish man, and he feels no loyalty to his siblings. The story is interesting and the idea of what parents owe their children is one that will engender a thoughtful discussion for book clubs who choose this one.

The final book, The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett, takes place across the pond in England, starting in 1958 when Jim Taylor runs across Eva Edelstein, who has just had an accident with her bicycle on the way to take a test at university. They fall in love and what comes next is told in three different versions. 

The title of the book comes from the triptych that Jim paints, depicting three versions of a couple. I loved this story, and although you may think that keeping track of three different versions of this couple’s lives over the years would be confusing, Barnett does an amazing job of keeping it all straight in the reader’s mind.

We see what happens or could have happened, over the years to Jim and Eva, and how one decision made changes so many lives in each version. Fans of the books/movies One Day and Sliding Doors will like this one, and I enjoyed it even more than both of those.

Opening Belle by Maureen Sweeney

Published by Simon & Schuster

Hardcover, 352 pages

A+

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

Published by Ecco

Hardcover, 368 pages

B+

The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Hardcover, 416 pages

A