Lift And Separate by Marilyn Simon Rothstein

Lift And Separate by Marilyn Simon Rothstein
Published by Lake Union Publishing ISBN 9781503940307
Trade paperback, $14.95, 304 pages

Marilyn Simon Rothstein's funny and poignant novel Lift And Separate opens with middle-aged Marcy Hammer in her bedroom with her best friend Dana three days after her husband Harvey has left her.

Harvey is the owner of a major brassiere company, Bountiful Bosom, (whose archrival is Victoria's Secret), and he has left his wife of over thirty years, the mother of his three adult children, for a young brassiere model. It's bad enough to be left, but to be left for a cliche, well that's too much for Marcy.

Rothstein writes some great scenes, like the one where Marcy goes dress shopping to find the perfect dress to win back Harvey.

In the middle of all this, Marcy has to deal with her mother, who ends up in the hospital. There Marcy meets Candy, a woman who is dealing with a sick father and a mother in a nursing home with dementia. Candy and Marcy become good friends, supporting each other in this time of crisis.

Soon Marcy learns something about Candy that will probably end their relationship, and this upsets Marcy. She is also dealing with her daughter Liz, a doctor who is involved in a relationship with a married man, her daughter Amanda who works for Bloomingdales and is supposed to take over the family business from dear old dad, and son Ben and how they are handling their parents' dissolving marriage, as well as her mom's illness.

Through it all Marcy keeps her sense of humor and manages to dig down deep to discover what she really wants out of life. Does she want Harvey back or is she ready to be on her own?

Rothstein has some funny lines that will make you chuckle, like "Mom had contributed so much 'gently used clothing' to the Salvation Army I was surprised she wasn't a general", and "I had received his name from a haggard woman in the cemetery office, who most likely was wearing the same cardigan she had thrown around her shoulders on her way to vote for Nixon."

Lift And Separate will appeal to woman of a certain age, as they say, and fans of Dorothea Benton Frank will also enjoy it and root for Marcy to get the happiness she deserves.

Marilyn Simon Rothstein is hilarious on Facebook, and I recommend that you like her here.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Marilyn Simon Rothstein's tour, the rest of her stops are here:

Marilyn Simon Rothstein’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Thursday, July 6th: BookBub Blog– 6 Books That Will Have Women Laughing

Monday, July 17th: Novel Gossip

Wednesday, July 19th: West Metro Mommy Reads

Monday, July 24th: Bookchickdi

Wednesday, July 26th: A. Holland Reads

Monday, July 31st: Girl Who Reads

Tuesday, August 1st: Why Girls are Weird

Wednesday, August 2nd: From the TBR Pile

Thursday, August 3rd: Readaholic Zone – author guest post

Friday, August 4th: BookNAround

Monday, August 7th: Must Read Faster

Tuesday, August 8th: Just One More Chapter

Wednesday, August 9th: Jathan & Heather

Sunday, October 1st: Writer Unboxed

Weekend Cooking- Quality Eats

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.

New restaurants open in our neighborhood frequently, and when I saw a sign go up for Quality Eats, I was so excited. It's a special treat going to Quality Meats and Quality Italian in Midtown on the west side, so to have a Quality Eats in walking distance is a good thing.

The day that reservations opened up, I snagged us a Saturday evening one.  The day of our reservation, I got a text reminding me of our dinner, and thirty minutes before dinner, I got another text reminding me. That is a first for me, getting a thirty minute warning.

When we arrived, the place was already very busy, with most of the tables already taken by 6pm.  We got a cozy little table in the back corner of the restaurant, and our server promptly appeared.

My husband reviewed the wine list and chose a bottle of a Rhone blend that was very smooth. For starters, I chose Grilled Boucheron Cheese, served with a side of a toasted pear baguette. It was sinfully good, crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside. I was glad I ate yogurt for lunch that day.

Grilled Bouceron Cheese

For our main course, we both chose the Don Ameche steak, which was a filet that was buttery tender, grilled perfectly medium, and served with a side of salad on top of chicken liver topped toast. (Toast is the big thing here.)

Don Ameche Steak

We shared two sides- Baked Potato Money Bread, which are rolls topped with bacon, butter and chives and quite similar to the delicious bread served at Quality Italian, and Creamed Spinach Hush Puppies, which were also crispy on the outside and filled with gooey creamed spinach inside.

Baked Potato Monkey Bread & Creamed Spinach Hush Puppies

Quality Eats is all about ice cream for dessert, and since I adore the ice cream at Quality Meats, I had to have the Birthday Cake dessert, which is chocolate malted ice cream with diced vanilla confetti cake and vanilla frosting and sprinkles on top. It even comes with a candle, and was the perfect little ending to dinner.

Birthday Cake Ice Cream

Quality Eats is trying to appeal to a younger crowd than its other two restaurants; the prices and portions are smaller, and the atmosphere is a little hipper and more casual, but the food is just as tasty as at Quality Meats and Quality Italian. We'll be visiting our new neighbors often.

Quality Eats website is here.

How To Start A Fire by Lisa Lutz

How To Start A Fire by Lisa Lutz
Published by Mariner Books ISBN 9780544705180
Trade paperback, $14.95, 352 pages

The first Lisa Lutz's book I read was The Spellman Files, the first in a series of mysteries about a family of private investigators. There is a delightful sense of humor in these books, and if you like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, you should give The Spellman Files a read.

The next book I read of Lutz's was The Passenger, a tense psychological thriller about a woman on the run after killing her husband. She was already on the run from something else, and when she meets a mysterious woman who saves her life, things get even more complicated. The Passenger made my list of Most Compelling Books of 2016 and I recommend it to everyone.

My friend and bookshop colleague told me I should read Lutz's 2015 novel, How To Start A Fire, and I finally got around to it. Boy, am I glad I did.

Kate and Anna are college freshman. Kate is an orphan who lives with her grandfather and hopes to take over his diner one day, living out her life in familiar surroundings. She finds things fascinating that other might not, like the ancient medical use of leeches. Anna is from a wealthy family back East, always up for an adventure and getting herself (and others) into trouble without much thought.

One night after leaving a frat party, they find a tall young woman lying drunk in the grass. They put her in a shopping cart and bring her back to their dorm. Her name is George, and she is a star athlete, very close to her dad after her mother died.

The three women become best friends, living together and planning their respective futures, which included medical school for Anna if she could get her grades up. We follow the women back and forth through the years. A tragic incident occurs that changes all of their lives and threatens their futures.

Lutz writes her characters so beautifully, and her words on the page are so stunning, I often found myself stopping and rereading them over and over, like this passage:

"Edgar had fallen in love with George's knees first, but he was also a back-of-the-neck man, a breast man, a shoulder man, even a foot man, just not in the fetish-video kind of way. An entire woman was too overwhelming. He preferred them in sections, the way one would study a map."

Lutz's sense of humor is here in smaller doses as well, as when she describes Anna's mother this way:

"Her mother's full-time job for the past nine months had been planning her son's wedding. Somehow Lena Fury had managed to shove aside the mother of the bride and the bride herself to become the chief operating officer of the Fury/Wentworth nuptials."

Kate, Anna and George are truly unforgettable characters, and Lutz tells their story with a compassion and clarity that resonates long after you finish their story. I highly recommend How To Start A Fire, and anything Lisa Lutz has written, in any genre.

Lisa Lutz's website is here.

Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams

Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062681690
Hardcover, $27.99, 384 pages

One of the great pleasures of reading Beatriz Williams' books is that if you are intrigued by a secondary character, frequently you will get more of them in a subsequent book. In a previous book, A Certain Age, set in the jazz age of New York City, Virginia Fortescue is the older sister of Sophie, who is a major character in the book. We learn a little bit about Virginia, enough to peak our interest.

In Cocoa Beach we get Virginia's story. During WWI, Virginia volunteered to work overseas in France, driving an ambulance to bring wounded men to get medical attention. She meets a handsome British doctor, Simon, and they quickly fall in love, even though Simon is married.

Simon has a difficult family situation, as does Virginia, perhaps that is one thing that attracts them to each other. They marry, but soon something tears them apart. They are separated for three years, and then Virginia is notified that Simon has died in a fire on his property in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Virginia goes to Cocoa Beach with her three year-old daughter and finds Simon's brother and sister waiting for her. She has her doubts about her husband's death, and is determined to get to the bottom of what Simon has been up to for these three years.

Williams' drops us into the humid, muggy atmosphere of south Florida, and you can almost smell the sea air, taste the sweet oranges, and feel the hot sand under your feet.

One thing I find interesting about many of Williams' female characters is their interest in cars. In Cocoa Beach, A Certain Age, and Tiny Little Thing, the women learn not only how to drive cars, but to repair and maintain them as well. This is most unusual for women of these times.

The writing in this story reminds me of watching a 1940's Barbara Stanwyck movie on Turner Classic Movies. The dialogue is rat-a-tat-tat, and the repartee is snappy. Cocoa Beach could have easily been a movie about the 1920's made in 1947.

 I also enjoyed the British slang in this book- "dosh" (money), "rotter" (a bad guy, a "player"), and "skint" (broke). Fair warning: I will be tossing these terms around in my everyday language.

You don't need to have read A Certain Age to enjoy Cocoa Beach, but you will have a deeper appreciation if you did. And I was happy to see Marshall, the Prohibition agent from A Certain Age, pop up here; I hope the end of this story leads us to see more of him in the next Beatriz Williams book.

Cocoa Beach is a terrific beach read, a book to get lost in while you are lounging on your porch with a glass of iced tea. (The cover is gorgeous too.)

Beatriz Williams website is here.

The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson

The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062682130
Hardcover, $26.99, 352 pages

I really enjoyed the last two books I read by Joshilyn Jackson- Somebody's Else's Love Story and The Opposite of Everyone. The characters pulled me in right away, and I love the setting of the stories in the South.

Jackson's latest novel, The Almost Sisters is also set in the South. Leia wrote a hugely popular comic book, Violence in Violet, a few years ago, a book with a decidedly feminist story. From that, she began a career illustrating other people's stories and became pretty much in demand.

At a comic convention, she meets a handsome "Batman" and has a one-night stand. That night results in her pregnancy. At the age of thirty-eight, this is not something Leia expected, and since she doesn't remember Batman's name, she can't even tell him about it.

Leia is summoned to her grandmother Birchie's home in small-town Alabama by townspeople concerned about Birchie's outburst at a church fish fry, an outburst that results in the church being turned upside down.

At the same time, Leia's perfect stepsister Rachel has just thrown her husband out of their home. Leia is shocked by this, as Rachel appears to have the perfect life. Rachel asks Leia to take her thirteen year-old daughter Lavender with Leia to Alabama while she tries to pick up the pieces.

Most of the story takes place in Birchie's small town, as Leia arrives to find her grandmother has a serious illness that effects her mental capacity as well as her body. Birchie's best friend and housemate Wattie has been hiding Birchie's illness from everyone, something that makes Leia very unhappy.

Fiction frequently uses secrets as a theme, and Jackson has a lot of them here- Leia hides her pregnancy, Rachel hides her marriage troubles, and Birchie and Wattie have more than a few secrets, including a whopper of a one that threatens to hurt many of them.

I love the setting of Birchville, a town founded by Birchie's ancestors. You get a real feeling of place here, and if you close your eyes, you can almost see Birchie's house, the church and the town square.

My favorite characters are Birchie and Wattie. I really wanted to know more about their younger days, how they got to be so close in a era when blacks and whites were not supposed to be friends, these two are closer than sisters. I would love a prequel to this story.

Fans of comic books (and other nerds as Leia frequently refers to herself) will have an added extra level of enjoyment here. Leia's comic Violence in Violet is dissected here in great detail, something I would have enjoyed more if I was into comic books. And Jackson's trademark Southern humor does shine through in Leia's character.

There is a lot here in The Almost Sisters- sisterly relationships, what makes a family, small town life, race relations in the South today and of course, the danger of keeping secrets. I can't say that I liked this one as much as her previous two books, but readers who enjoy a good family story set in the South will enjoy it.

Joshilyn Jackson's website is here.

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

Tour Stops

Tuesday, July 11th: Book by Book

Wednesday, July 12th: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World

Thursday, July 13th: bookchickdi

Friday, July 14th: Time 2 Read

Monday, July 17th: Tina Says…

Tuesday, July 18th: StephTheBookworm

Wednesday, July 19th: BookNAround

Thursday, July 20th: The Book Diva’s Reads

Friday, July 21st: Bibliotica

Monday, July 24th: A Chick Who Reads

Tuesday, July 25th: Leigh Kramer

Wednesday, July 26th: Always With a Book

Thursday, July 27th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Thursday, July 27th: Wining Wife

Friday, July 28th: SJ2B House Of Books

Monday, July 31st: she treads softly

Two Novels About Marriage

Reprinted from the Citizen:

Marriage is a topic that has been covered extensively in books, from self-help books to romance novels to literary fiction to mysteries and thrillers. Today’s column reviews two novels with the theme of marriage, albeit with a slightly different take.

In Dennis Lehane’s newest novel “Since We Fell”, Rachel Childs is a local TV reporter sent to cover Haiti after a disaster. Her reporting earns her a chance at a network TV assignment, but when she has an on-air breakdown, she loses her opportunity and her husband leaves her. 

She becomes a recluse, rarely leaving her apartment. She reconnects with Brian, a man she knew as a private investigator while looking for information about her birth father. Brian rescues her from a man in a bar, and they begin to date.

Brian is patient and loving with Rachel, and soon they marry. One day Rachel sees Brian coming out of hotel in Boston when he was supposed to be in London, and she begins to question if he is the man she believes him to be.

The beginning of this fast-paced novel hooks you right away. “On a Tuesday in May, in her thirty-seventh year, Rachel shot her husband dead. He stumbled backward with an odd look of confirmation on his face, as if some part of him had always known she’d do it.” How can you not read on?

“Since We Fell” packs so much in this fast-paced novel. At first it’s about a young woman looking for her father. Then the story moves to cover Rachel’s breakdown and her subsequent marriage to a seemingly wonderful man. The last third of the book is a straight-out thriller, as Rachel uncovers the truth about her husband and fights to stay alive.

Fans of “The Girl On The Train” and “In A Dark, Dark Wood” will love “Since We Fell”, and I liked it better than those; Lehane is a superb writer who knows how to write terrific characters while ratcheting up the tension.

For a more optimistic view of marriage, Deanna Lynn Sletten’s new novel, “One Wrong Turn” tells the story of Jess and Clay. The book begins when Jess is rushing home and has a car accident that results in her becoming comatose. 

Jess is living with their two daughters, twelve year-old Maddie and seven year-old Jilly, working to open a bed and breakfast in a home left her by her grandmother. Clay is summoned to the hospital, where he sees his comatose wife and two daughters for the first time in two years.

The story goes back and forth in time, beginning with the first meeting of Jess, a waitress in beach bar and Clay, a guitarist in a rock band. At first Jess wants nothing to do with a musician, but Clay wins her over.

They marry, and Jess becomes pregnant with Maddie. Clay’s career begins to take off, which means he is off touring with bands, in addition to becoming a highly respected and in-demand studio musician. Musicians like to drink, and Clay begins to drink too much.

Jess puts up with Clay’s drinking until she returns home one day and finds him passed out when he is supposed to be caring for their baby. Clay’s attempts at sobriety include stints at rehab facilities, and he manages to stay sober for periods of times.

Eventually Jess has had enough and she takes the girls and moves away when she inherits her grandmother’s house. They build a life for themselves, and make friends, until the accident.

Maddie is old enough to remember good and bad times with her father, but young Jilly doesn’t remember much. Clay vows to the girls that he will care for them, but Maddie fears they will be abandoned by Clay once again. In addition, there is the question of whether Jess will ever come out of her coma. 

“One Wrong Turn” is the story of a marriage that tries to overcome the illness of addiction, and what happens when the unimaginable occurs. It’s beautifully written, and the characters, particularly Maddie and Clay, are ones that readers will identify and empathize with.

Sletten’s last novel, “Finding Libbie” was about love, marriage and mental illness, and she approaches her books with such sensitivity, I admit to tearing up more than once while reading her. Fans of Elin Hilderbrand's books should seek out Deanna Lee Sletten’s books.

“Since We Fell” by Dennis Lehane- A

Published by Ecco

Hardcover, $26.99, 432 pages

“One Wrong Turn” by Deanna Lynn Sletten- A-

Published by Lake Union Publishing

Trade paperback, $14.95, 204 pages

New In Paperback- Behind Closed Doors by B.A.Paris

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris
Published by St. Martin's Griffin ISBN 9781250132369
Trade paperback, $16.99, 352 pages

Jack and Grace seem like the perfect couple to their friends. When they give dinner parties, Jack helps Grace in the kitchen. He lavishes her with beautiful clothes, gifts and compliments, and while it's true that Grace frequently cancels plans for lunch or shopping with her friends, well there can't be anything behind that, can there?

Grace met Jack in the park where she takes her sister Millie every weekend. Millie has Down's syndrome and lives in a boarding school near Grace. Millie was dancing to the music in the park and when others were laughing at her, Jack came over to Millie and danced with her. Grace was immediately smitten.

Jack courted Grace fervently. He was a perfect gentleman, a lawyer who represents victims of domestic violence. When he proposed marriage, he told Grace he would like to build her the house of her dreams where they could live with Millie happily ever after. It was a fairytale come true for Grace.

B.A. Paris' novel Behind Closed Doors takes off from there. To say anything more about the plot would be to give away too much, but suffice it to say I spent three hours reading this propulsive thriller without looking up until I finished, finally letting out a long breath. It reminded me of reading Harlan Coben's thrillers.

I'm not one for thrillers because I find them too gory and scary, and while this one did have my heart racing, it wasn't gory. You will get completely lost in Grace and Jack's story, trying to figure out how it will all end.

B.A. Paris has crafted a crackerjack of a thrilling debut novel, and she is an author that I will be looking forward to reading more of in the future. Her new novel, The Breakdown, publishes July 18, and has already garnered similar high praise. You can find out more here.

On Broadway- A Doll's House Part 2

Lucas Hnath's brilliant play, A Doll's House Part 2, is a sequel of sorts. It had the same characters as Henrik Ibsen's classic A Doll's House, and it picks up the action fifteen years after the end of Ibsen's play. But you need not have read or seen Ibsen's play to enjoy Hnath's work.

The action begins with insistent knocking on a door. Anne Marie, a servant, opens the door to find Nora standing on the other side. Nora, who left her husband and three young children fifteen years ago. We find out that Nora has not communicated with her family in the intervening years. They did not know if she was dead or alive.

Nora, played by Laurie Metcalf who won the Tony Award this year for her role, is a ball of fire. She is well dressed, and the intervening years have apparently been good to her. She asks Ann Marie, the women who was left to raise Nora's children to guess how she made her money.

Anne Marie, played by the fantastic Jayne Houdyshell, is curious but after guessing actress and model and maybe prostitute, Nora is miffed that Ann Marie only guesses stereotypical female-centered careers that rely on women's beauty. Nora proudly tells her that she is a writer, a successful writer, whose first book was a bestseller about a woman who leaves her family.

Anne Marie tells Nora she should leave before Torvald, Nora's husband returns home, but soon Torvald appears. Chris Cooper is hypnotic as Torvald, you cannot take your eyes off him when he is on stage, although at times he was difficult to hear.

The scene between Nora and Torvald is nothing short of astonishing. These are two actors at the height of the talents, and the stage crackles with tension and residual feelings between them. You could hear a pin drop during their big scene. I could have watched them talk for hours.

Condola Rashad (Showtime's Billions) plays Nora and Torvald's daughter Emmy. Emmy is curious to see her mother, who left her when she was three years old. Emmy is about to be married and she doesn't want her returning mother to ruin her life.

A Doll's House Part 2 has much to say about marriage and the role of women, which for some hasn't changed much in the years since the setting of the late 19th century. You could hear many in the audience audibly reacting to some of the more intriguing ideas.

All four of the actors, the entire cast, were nominated for Tony's this year, with Metcalf winning for Best Actress in a Play. They were all amazing, and the extended standing ovation at the end of the show reflected that. The show is funny and though-provoking and a must-see.

There are discount tickets available but A Doll's House is a show worth paying full price for. Note- Metcalf just announced she is leaving the show on July 23, and the equally talented Julie White will be replacing her.

A Doll's House Part 2's website is here.

Cafe By The Sea by Jenny Colgan

The Cafe By The Sea by Jenny Colgan
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062662972
Trade paperback, $15.99, 432 pages

I recently read my first Jenny Colgan book, The Bookshop On The Corner, (review here), and was utterly charmed by it. I recommended it to several people, and each one enjoyed it as well. When I heard that Jenny had a new book publishing, I was excited to be offered a spot on her TLC book tour.

Like The Bookshop On The Corner, The Cafe By The Sea is also set in a small town in Scotland. Flora is working as a paralegal for a law firm in London, having left her home in Mure and her fathers and brothers behind after her mother passed away.

She has a few friends in London, and a major crush on her boss at the firm, Joel, an enigmatic, hard-driving man who serially dates women but doesn't appear to have anyone serious in his life.

When one of Joel's biggest clients, Colton Rogers, buys up property in Flora's hometown, Flora is assigned the task of returning home to help Colton smooth over relations with the townspeople to get approval for his building plans.

Flora does not want to return home to face her family and friends. Something happened at her mother's funeral, and she is afraid of having to deal with everyone in that aftermath. Flora's brothers and her father don't appear to be too happy to see Flora either.

She is dismayed to find the family's home in disarray; the men don't keep it neat and tidy, and although they live on a farm, they seem to only eat takeout from the fish and chips place or eat food out of a can.

Flora finds her mother's old recipes and cooks up some family favorites. In order to schmooze the townpeople, Flora opens up a cafe in town in a building owned by Colton, and right away it is a hit. Cooking helps Flora feel alive in a way that her law work doesn't allow her.

I adored The Cafe By The Sea.  The setting of the Scottish town by the sea is so vivid, and the characters are so wonderful, I wanted to know them all- her brothers Fintan, Innes and Hamish, Colton, Joel, Flora's friend Lorna, even Bramble the dog- they were all so endearing.

There are romantic entanglements- Flora and Joel, Flora and Charlie the local hunk, and a sweet surprise romance for Fintan. (I confess that Fintan was my favorite character.) There are delicious food descriptions that will have your stomach growling (but fear not, Colgan includes recipes at the end of the book) and the setting is so enticing, you will want to book a ticket to Mure so you can eat at The Cafe By The Sea. I highly recommend this delightful novel.

Jenny Colgan's website is here.

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

Tour Stops

Tuesday, June 27th: Girl Who Reads

Thursday, June 29th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Monday, July 3rd: A Chick Who Reads

Tuesday, July 4th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Wednesday, July 5th: I Wish I Lived in a Library

Thursday, July 6th: bookchickdi

Friday, July 7th: Kritters Ramblings

Monday, July 10th: Tina Says…

Tuesday, July 11th: Vox Libris

Wednesday, July 12th: A Wondrous Bookshelf

Thursday, July 13th: Just Commonly

Friday, July 14th: StephTheBookworm

TBD: Book by Book

Road Trip- Summer With Robin in Rhode Island

I'm lucky that living in New York City allows me the opportunity to attend many book signings, talks, and sometimes, book launch parties. Last week I made a road trip to Rhode Island to visit my sister-in-law (who also loves books) to attend Summer With Robin at the Quidnessett Country Club.

A view from the Quidnessett Counrty Club

The setting is beautiful, and it was a perfect evening for book fun. We started the day wandering around Newport, my first trip there. It's such a lovely place! We walked around the wharf, had a delicious lunch at 22 Bowen's, splitting a burger and some polenta fries, and we each had a Kiwi Burst, a refreshing cocktail of rum, pineapple vodka, kiwi and mint.

After visiting the quaint little shops (the Newport Mansions Store on Bannister Wharf is a must-stop), we headed over to the country club. We had VIP tickets, which entitled us to a cocktail hour, with passed appetizers and a pasta station, and an opportunity to meet the authors and have our books signed.

The sold-out event was filled with mostly women, all readers, many of whom have attended this event annually. Robin introduced each author and gave them a few minutes to give a short overview and read from their books.

Robin Kall with her sister and the authors

Jillian Cantor's novel, The Lost Letter, is an historical novel set in two time periods. The first is 1938 Austria during the German occupation, featuring a stamp engraver apprentice.

The Lost Letter

The second time period is 1989, when Katie has to move her father to an Alzheimer's care unit and has his stamp collection appraised. The appraiser finds an unusual stamp, and that ties the two time periods together. It's a story that features family, strong women, and the Jewish resistance.

Angelica Baker's Our Little Racket is a debut novel set in 2008 in Greenwich Connecticut, about the aftermath of the failure of large bank, and how the failure affects five women involved with the bank's CEO, who faces accusations of wrongdoing.

Our Little Racket

Laura Dave, whose last novel 800 Grapes was a bestseller, is back with Hello, Sunshine, a modern tale about the role of social media in our lives. Her protagonist is a successful YouTube personality who has managed to work her way into a Food Network TV show. When she is hacked, it comes out that she is a fraud. The book has already been optioned for a movie, with Dave's screenwriter husband, Josh Singer (Spotlight) writing the screenplay.

Hello Sunshine

Kall asked the women what their inspiration was, and Baker said that when her writing was going poorly, and she started to read about the Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapses, which she was unfamiliar with. She said she can read fiction when she writes.

Cantor can't read historical fiction when she writes. She didn't know anything about stamps when she started, and her agent suggested the topic to her. During a visit to the National Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, she was fascinated by the Resistance exhibit, and the fact that many were so young was impressive.

Her character Elena was inspired by a woman in the exhibit. Cantor created a Pinterest board with items about stamps, the Resistance, and Kristallnacht that helped her with research. She spoke of the ordinary people who lived in extraordinary times.

Dave was intrigued by the Sony hack, it made her wonder whose life when put under a microscope would look pure, and took her story from there. She immersed herself in the Food Network and food bloggers to get the look and feel for her character.

She mentioned something that the audience found interesting. She spoke about a marriage researcher who said she could tell what makes a marriage work. If the couple used the word "we" rather than "I', they would make it. You could hear the wheels turning as the audience all considered what word they used. Dave made the audience laugh when she said she now says "We're annoyed at you" when talking to her husband.

The writers talked about eavesdropping on others' conversations (at restaurants, on subways), the publishers asking them to be active on social media, Skyping with book clubs (they like it), and situations they won't use (most having to do with immediate family).

Dave spoke about spilling water on her computer and losing 200 pages of a novel. She was sad for a day, but then bucked up and started again. That led to a discussion about the importance of emailing the manuscript to yourself as you go along.

Kall finished up by asking my favorite question- what are you reading?- to the authors. Cantor raved about Georgia Hunter's We Were The Lucky Ones, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Sarah Dunn's The Arrangement and an older nonfiction book, Erik Lawson's In The Garden of the Beasts.

Baker is reading Julia Buntin's Marlena, Stephen Florida, The Epiphany Machine, and Britt Bennett's The Mothers.

Dave had five books on her list: James Hansen's First Man, (which is also a movie written by her husband starring Ryan Gosling as astronaut Neil Armstrong), J. Courtney Sullivan's Saints For All Occasions, Matt Klam's Who Is Rich?, and two older books, Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys and Isabel Gilles' memoir It Happens Every Day.

Robin had delicious cookies for all of us on our way out, and it was the perfect ending to an informative and interesting evening. You can find out more Reading With Robin's events here.

Dunkirk- The History Behind The Major Motion Picture by Joshua Levine

Dunkirk by Joshua Levine
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062740304
Trade paperback, $16.99, 339 pages

Christopher Nolan, the creative genius behind The Dark Knight (Batman), Inception and Memento turns his eye next to Dunkirk, which tells the true story of a major British military evacuation off the coast of Belgium during WWII.

Dunkirk is based on a book of the same name by historian Joshua Levine. Levine's 2011 book has been updated for the upcoming movie release, and it is bookended with an interview between Levine and Nolan at the beginning of the book about why Nolan chose this project, and a chapter at the end of the book discussing the process of making the movie, including comments from members of the production team. Movie buffs will love these extra chapters, giving them a fascinating insight into the process of moviemaking.

History buffs will love the actual story of Operation Dynamo itself. I confess to not being a big military history reader, so the sections of the book I found most intriguing had to do with the historical perspective of the events that led up to Britain's involvement in WWII.

Great Britain was still reeling from the effects of WWI, fought nearly twenty years prior. They lost an entire generation of men in WWI, and the thought of losing another generation to a war with Germany was not one that many people wanted to contemplate.

The worldwide depression severely impacted Great Britain, with unemployment high. With no system of welfare, there was tension between the classes, and extreme political parties were able to gain a foothold exploiting this. One can see echoes of this in today's world events as well.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed that he could work with Hitler's Nazi government to avoid war. He was accused of appeasement, and this led to the election of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister of Great Britain during the most trying time in history.

Churchill approved the plans for Operation Dynamo, which called for the evacuation of as many as 40,000 British troops from Dunkirk. The Germans were about to surround the British and French troops, and in order to save the troops from a certain slaughter or capture, they must arrange for an evacuation. Failure to save these troops would mean that the Allies would most likely lose the war, and the world today would be a much different place if that had happened.

The book goes into great detail about the actual logistics of the evacuation, a monumental task. Every available military and private ship and boat was recruited to make the trip to Dunkirk to ferry the soldiers back to England. There are many remembrances from people who make that voyage, and they are so interesting.

The troops were sent to the beach, and with tens of thousands of soldiers along the beach, some for many days, it became a little city of its own. Men played cards, built small shelters, and waited and waited until it was their turn to wade out in to the sea to be rescued, all while being attacked from the sky by German airplanes.

Levine compared this scene to the one of refugees from war and poverty who are taking any form of floating apparatus to get to the shores of Greece and Italy, an apt comparison.

Dunkirk is a fascinating look at a historical event that many people don't know about. While some people felt that this event was a story of a failed battle, Levine looks at it as an incredible story of survival. The goal was to save 40,000 troops, and the reality was that over 260,000 troops were rescued from the shores of Dunkirk, an astonishing number.

England used Dunkirk as a rallying cry and people in England today still speak of the "Dunkirk Spirit" when talking about bucking up and working together to achieve a goal that seems unattainable.

I highly recommend Dunkirk for movie fans, history and military history buffs.

Joshua Levine's website is here.
The website for the movie Dunkirk is here.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Joshua Levine's tour. The rest of his stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, June 27th: Savvy Verse & Wit

Wednesday, June 28th: bookchickdi

Thursday, June 29th: Dwell in Possibility

Friday, June 30th: Mama Vicky Says

Monday, July 3rd: Ace and Hoser Blook

Wednesday, July 5th: My Military Savings

Thursday, July 6th: Books & Tea

Monday, July 10th: Man of La Book

Tuesday, July 11th: A Bookish Way of Life

Wednesday, July 12th: Jathan & Heather

Thursday, July 13th: Tina Says…

Kiss Carlo by Adriana Trigiani

Kiss Carlo by Adriana Trigiani
Published by HarperCollins ISBN 9780062319227
Hardcover, $27.99, 532 pages

As regular readers of this blog know, I always look forward to a new Adriana Trigiani book. I feel like I am an honorary Italian when I read her books, filled with family, food, romance and people with a good work ethic.

Trigiani's latest novel, Kiss Carlo, is a big, beautiful novel, stuffed with all of the above and more.  The story begins in Roseto Valfatore, Italy in 1949, with Carlo, the ambassador, heading to Roseto, Pennsylvania to seek help from some Italian-Americans in rebuilding their road.

From there, we meet the Palazzini brothers of Philadelphia, Dom and Mike, who once owned a taxi company together, but after a falling out, they now have competing taxi companies and no longer speak to each other.

Dom is the frugal one, and his wife Jo has spent her life caring for their home and (now grown) children, and her nephew Nicky who lost his parents at an early age. Jo is the kind of woman who makes homemade pasta in the basement, and irons everyone's underwear.

Mike is the flashier guy, and he has a more successful taxi business. His wife Nancy has the fancy clothes, and visits the hair salon weekly. The sisters-in-law used to be close, but because of the feud no longer speak. It's almost Shakespearean, you could say.

Speaking of Shakespeare, Nicky drives Uncle Dom's taxi by day and by night volunteers at a local Shakespearean theater, run by Calla Borelli, who is trying to keep the doors to her father's theater open. This new television craze has hurt live theater.

What's interesting in Kiss Carlo is that the main character is Nicky, a man. Nicky feels a little lost, even though his aunt and uncle love him very much. He is engaged to Peachy, a woman who feels her time is running out before she is officially a spinster.

When Nicky gets the opportunity to perform onstage at the theater, he comes alive. Now he knows what he wants to do- be an actor. Peachy, however, will not hear of it.

There is a lot going on in Kiss Carlo, and watching how Trigiani weaves the story and characters together is just amazing. It's like seeing someone take a skein of yarn and a few minutes later a beautiful blanket materializes.

There are so many great characters in this story- Jo Palazzini, Calla, Nicky, Mamie Confalone- but my favorite is Hortense. Hortense is a black woman who works as a dispatcher for Dom's taxi service. She has been with them for years, and she brooks no nonsense. Don't ask Hortense what she thinks unless you really want to know.

Hortense finds herself involved in a crazy caper with Nicky, and through that experience she meets a woman who will change her life. I love that Hortense wants a better life for herself and when she sees an opportunity, she works hard and uses her brains to make it happen. (It's that work ethic that shows up in every one of Trigiani's books.)

I had the chance to speak briefly with Adriana and I told her that I think Hortense is my all-time favorite character of hers. She told me that Hortense was a real person, and she actually shows up in the Acknowledgements page.

Soap opera fans will get a kick out of the fact that uber-producer Gloria Monty has a cameo appearance in this book. I told you, there is a lot packed into this book.

I gave a copy of Kiss Carlo to one of my Italian-American friends, and she read the 500+ page book in two days, telling me she couldn't put it down. I totally agree with her, this is one of Adriana Trigiani's best books.

Whether you're from a big family or just yearn to be, Kiss Carlo is for you. And if you take this book to the beach, bring along plenty of sunscreen because you will not be able to stop reading it until you finish. I give it my highest recommendation.

Adriana Trigiani's website is here.

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

Tour Stops

Tuesday, June 20th: Life By Kristen

Wednesday, June 21st: bookchickdi

Thursday, June 22nd: A Night’s Dream of Books

Friday, June 23rd: Time 2 Read

Monday, June 26th: Library of Clean Reads

Tuesday, June 27th: Based on a True Story

Wednesday, June 28th: Always With a Book

Thursday, June 29th: Thoughts On This ‘n That

Friday, June 30th: View from the Birdhouse

Monday, July 3rd: Kritters Ramblings

Tuesday, July 4th: The many thoughts of a reader

Wednesday, July 5th: Tina Says…

Thursday, July 6th: History from a Woman’s Perspective

Friday, July 7th: My Journey Back

Friday, July 7th: Stephany Writes

Monday, July 10th: Wining Wife

Tuesday, July 11th: West Metro Mommy

Wednesday, July 12th: BookNAround

Thursday, July 13th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Friday, July 14th: Bibliotica

Becoming Bonnie by Jenni L Walsh

Becoming Bonnie by Jenni L. Walsh
Published by Tor ISBN 9780765390189
Hardcover, $25.99, 304 pages

I enjoy reading novels about real people. I find it intriguing when authors take a real person and using research and their imagination, write a fascinating story.

Jenni L. Walsh's Becoming Bonnie, takes the reader on the journey of Bonnelyn Parker, a young woman living in Texas just before the Great Depression, before she meets Clyde Barrow and becomes one of the most infamous criminals in America- Bonnie of Bonnie & Clyde.

Most people know Bonnie Parker from the 1967 classic movie, Bonnie & Clyde, where Faye Dunaway played Bonnie Parker as a bored waitress who falls in love with Warren Beatty's charming Clyde Barrow, and they roam the southwest robbing banks before they end up dead in a violent clash with police.

Becoming Bonnie begins with a teenage Bonnie, a good, religious girl from the wrong side of the tracks in Dallas. Bonnie is a good student, and dreams of becoming a teacher. She sings in the church choir, and is a dutiful daughter and kind to her brother and much younger sister.

Bonnie's dad is dead, so she helps her working mother by working after school as a waitress in a diner. She is engaged to Roy, a young man who buys a run-down home for them to refurbish and move into once they are married.

When the depression hits, it hits Bonnie's family hard. Her brother mangles his hand at the factory where he works, so he becomes a stockbroker just before the crash. Her mother becomes ill and can't work as much. When Bonnie's boss has to let her go because there is no business, she becomes desperate to find a job to help her family.

Her best friend Blanche convinces Bonnie to join her at a speakeasy, where they both find jobs. Blanche meets Buck Barrow and it's lust at first sight. Buck introduces Bonnie to his brother Clyde, and when Bonnie saves Clyde's life after a booze running escapade goes awry, Clyde is grateful- and falling in love.

Walsh shows us how circumstances moved Bonnie from a shy, devout young woman to a person seduced by a lifestyle and the love of a man who swept her off her feet. She does a wonderful job putting the reader in Bonnie's shoes, and we get a real sense of how the Great Depression left people desperate.

The novel really comes alive when Bonnie and Clyde's relationship starts to blossom, you can feel the heat on the page. It reminded me of the Wizard of Oz movie going from black and white to color.

Becoming Bonnie ends before the pair begin their crime spree, and I hope that Walsh will revisit the story and tell us what happened after they became Bonnie and Clyde.

Weekend Cooking- Charlie Palmer at the Knick

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.

People frequently ask me for suggestions on where to eat dinner near Times Square when they are visiting NYC, usually to see a Broadway show. I didn't really have a great suggestion for a smaller, more intimate place until now. (If you have a big group, Tony's DiNapoli is wonderful.)

About a month ago, we went with friends to see Hamilton on Broadway, and it was just as great with the new cast as it was with the original cast. Before the show, we went to Charlie Palmer's at the Knickerbocker Hotel, located at 6 Times Square, off of 42nd Street. It's so good, I have returned twice within a month, once with a great group of blogger friends after the Book Expo, and once on a ladies' night with my sons' girlfriends before we saw Anastasia (which was fantastic- go see it!).

The entrance is inside the Knickerbocker Hotel, up on the 4th floor. When you get off the elevator, it's hard to believe you are still in the middle of bustling Times Square. The room is hushed and dark, with lots of low lighting and couches in muted colors opposite the bar.

They have a wonderful pre-theater pre-fixe menu from 5:30-6:30, and even though we were running a little late, they managed to get us out in time for the show. They have a terrific wine and cocktail list, and my choice of the Landmark Chardonnay from California was a winner.

Their pre-fixe menu is three courses, with three choices for each for $45 a person. In the appetizer section, you can choose from a Market Salad, with pumpkin seeds, radish and a light lemon dressing, a Grilled Mushroom, Goat Cheese and Onion Flatbread or a Blue Crab Tomato Bisque.

The grilled flatbread was the star here, and it was big enough to share, so two people could order the salad and flatbread and share, as our waiter suggested.

Grilled Flatbread

For the main course, you can choose from a vegetarian Pecorino Risotto, with mushrooms, a Chicken Breast with a mushroom and scallion cream sauce, served with a roasted potato that was more like a baked croquette (and totally tasty), or their Kobe Burger, with a maple glazed bacon and comte cheese.

I've had the chicken all three times and each time it has been phenomenal. The portion is not too big either, which I really liked. The sauce was perfectly seasoned, and the potatoes seemed almost like a scalloped potato.

I chose the Almond Cake for dessert, which was served with a scoop of raspberry sorbet and strawberries. The presentation was lovely and the little cake with its sides was a terrific ending. The other choices are sorbet or ice cream, or fresh strawberries marinated in mint served with a lime sorbet.

Almond Cake dessert

If you are looking for a great dinner, with a quieter atmosphere where you can have a conversation without shouting, try Charlie Palmer at the Knick, I highly recommend it. 

One funny observation: each of the three times I have been there, I have been seated at the same table and had the same waiter, Matt, who is very good. It's starting to feel a little like Groundhog Day, which is now playing on Broadway.

Have you found any good restaurants in your town lately? Tell us about it in comments.

Charlie Palmer's at the Knick's website is here.