Winter 2025 ~~ Hooked on Books

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Watch for the next review, which is coming soon.

• Something Lost, Something Gained
• Written by Hillary Rodham Clinton
• ISBN13: 978-1668017234
• Simon & Schuster (September 2024)

What We Can Do

Why are so many of us drawn to the stories of famous people? Are we trying to learn how they’re different or what we have in common with them? The answer will vary depending on the person, of course, but you’re guaranteed a fascinating inside look at the honest reflections of former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when you read Something Lost, Something Gained. As the title implies this is a reflection on her life.

If you’re curious about Hillary Clinton’s thoughts and passions, she shares both in this new memoir. She’s “looked at life from both sides” as a wife, mother, and political figure in the spotlight and out of it. Whether you’re wondering about Bill, her grandkids or her views on  politics, liberty, democracy, the future and the threats looming, you’ll find out here. She’s wonderfully direct as she shares her point of view.

Clinton describes the strength she draws from her deepest friendships, her experiences with her daughter Chelsea and family, her Methodist faith, and her relationship with her long-time husband, former President Bill Clinton She has the wisdom and perspective that comes from a life well lived and seeing things from the perspective she now has. As she writes, we get to watch her being a professor in a college classroom, being a former First Lady, and being a wife for over fifty years.

Calling on her personal experiences with Afghan women, Vladimir Putin, a strong group of women friends, and her experiences with aging, she opens up about what her life taught her. You’ll feel like you’re sitting across from her at your kitchen table as she recounts her memories of her days at Wellesley, her fight to help parents keep toxic technology away from their kids, and her campaign to save abortion rights.

Best of all, she offers a fervent warning to all American voters, though maybe the book, published in September 2024, came out a little too late. Still, it’s not too late to follow her advice on what we can do to make our own lives better, and these days that matters immensely. For a great story by a woman who put thousands of cracks in the glass ceiling, read Something Lost, Something Gained. 

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• The Younger Girl: A Dark Labyrinth of Family Betrayal
• Written by Georgia Jeffries
• ISBN #: ‎978-1961302617
• Mission Point Press  (October 11, 2024)

Historical Thriller Meets Supernatural Suspense

What if a relative of yours was killed? How would it affect your family? I know that sounds grim, but if the murder was in 1933 and the victim was your aunt, you might be curious to learn what led to it and what went so wrong that someone felt compelled to kill your aunt. You might want to find out if your family was dysfunctional before as well as after.

Georgia Jeffries put enormous quantities of research into The Younger Girl: A dark labyrinth of family betrayal. In the process she learned a great deal about her aging father, the neighbors and the motivations of people who opposed a will that left the family property to her aunt, Aldine, who would have to wait until she was eighteen to inherit the property.

In 1933, Chicago tabloids announced the death of twenty-year-old town belle Aldine Younger. Years later her niece, Joanna, and her brother, Owen, return to Pontiac, Illinois, hoping they can claim the extensive farm property which Owen believed was his.

Although they’re seeking the truth, they find lie after lie muddying the story and the truth. There was a great deal of  greed and a different set of standards in that time. Maybe it’s the return to Illinois, maybe it’s his age, or maybe it’s the maelstrom of greed, emotional attachment, and protection that still exists, but Owen’s sanity teeters on the edge and he confuses Joanna with Aldine.

Joanna unearths secrets and discovers a psychic bridge that links the past, present, and future. But at what cost? And who will survive the revelations?

Part historical thriller and part supernatural suspense, the author combines fact and fiction to tell a compelling story. Georgia Jeffries is a writer of Emmy Award-winning drama and acclaimed noir fiction. Honored with multiple Writers Guild Awards, Golden Globes, and the Humanitas Prize, her work in film has been praised by the Los Angeles Times as “standing ovation television.” She wrote Cagney and Lacey, China Beach, and Sisters, which gave her a strong appreciation for female protagonists. A prolific writer, her additional credits include everything from docudramas to short stories.

For a new and impressive look at the places where family dramas can lead you, read Georgia Jeffries The Younger Girl, and be sure to visit her website, https://georgiajeffries.com

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• Arizona Triangle
• Written by Sydney Graves
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0063379992
• Harper Paperbacks (October 22, 2024)

Delicious, Entertaining, and Vaguely Familiar

What might alienate a woman from society? Does she want to cope and what can she do to fit in? These are just some of the questions answered in Sydney Graves’ book The Arizona Triangle: A Jo Bailen Detective Novel, an intricate mystery with a challenging plot enmeshed in a familiar structure. It’s a story of the effects of childhood trauma on one family and a strong, gutsy female detective who happens to be bisexual.

P.I. Jo Bailen works for a female detective agency located in Tucson, Arizona when she’s asked to find Rose, her long-ago friend who’s now missing. She doesn’t want to get involved, but Rose’s mother insists that she’s the woman for the job, so she heads back to her hometown, Delphi. Once she’s there she discovers that her high school boyfriend, Tyler is the cop assigned to the case. Trepidation stirs since her friendship with Rose ended when Jo started dating him.

To have any hope of learning the truth about Rose’s disappearance, Jo must finally face the demons she thought she’d escaped in Phoenix as well as some that she never knew about until she went searching for answers to the question of whether Rose committed suicide or was murdered.

This murder mystery reminds me of a Sue Grafton novel with description worthy of Jonathan Kellerman. Sydney Graves writing adds a fresh layer of social responsibility and includes  social issues, from Native American identity appropriation by one character to sexual fluidity by another. The complexity enhances its uniqueness. The ever-increasing tension will keep readers on the edges of their seat.

Sydney Graves is a penname for Kate Christensen, an Arizona native and the author of eight novels, most recently Welcome Home, Stranger. Her fourth novel, The Great Man, won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She has also published two food-centric memoirs, Blue Plate Special and How to Cook a Moose, which won the 2016 Maine Literary Award for Memoir. Her essays, reviews, and short pieces have appeared in a wide variety of publications and anthologies. She lives with her husband and their two dogs in Taos, New Mexico.

It’s a delicious, entertaining, and vaguely familiar account that kept me turning pages. If you like stories with woman heroes, contemporary issues, and conflicts that keep the narrator on her toes, you’ll love this one.

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• Tom Lake
• By Ann Patchett
• ISBN # : ‎ 978-0063327528
• First published August 1, 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing

Insight, Depth, and Following Your Heart

Summer stock is a great place for actors to hone their craft. But what do you when factors beyond your control, like attraction or a snapped Achilles tendon, or self-doubt alter your path? Do you keep pursuing, medicate your obsessions about success, or find a new path? These are just some of the issues that Ann Patchett explores in Tom Lake: A Novel. 

Two threads run through this novel and Ann Patchett makes it easy to figure out where we are in each scene the timeline. In Spring 2020, Emily, Maisie, and Nell Nelson, young women in their twenties are quarantined with their parents on the family’s cherry farm. They ask their mother, Lara, to tell them about the summer she performed Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in summer stock with Peter Duke, who became a famous Hollywood actor. They asked about her crush on him and how their dad, who was also in the play but went to the family farm to help out his parents, fit into the story. TMI for three daughters? Not at all in the narrator’s skillful, mature hands. She knows exactly what to share, and what to leave out, so you’ll learn some details that the daughters don’t.

Tom Lake is a story about the changes in the way a woman experiences love depending on her age and her level of maturity. It’s about the paths we choose and the ones we take because of things beyond our control. It’s about good and bad judgment as well. Ultimately, it’s about finding happiness and seeing the gifts that life gave you, even if you did not recognize them at the time.

In beautifully written prose Ann Patchett explores family dynamics and the sources that create them. Her work is revered because of her writing skills and the insight, depth, and heart in her stories. If you cannot afford a copy, check it out of your local library.

If art imitates life, then the art of Our Town is imitated in the lives of the characters in this story. In turn Ann Patchett’s art will give you perspective on your own life. Highly recommended.

Editor’s Note: I found this on the giveaway cart outside our library’s book store. You never know what treasures a public library or little free library might contain. Check them out and share your gently used books with all kinds of libraries. 

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• Shell Games
• Written by Bonnie Kistler
• ISBN #: 978-0063378964
• Harper Paperbacks (November 19, 2024)

Conspiracy, Gaslighting, or Paranoia?

No one should be controlled by another. Not by a mother. Not by a husband. But what does it take to rise above fears and imaginings? To protect a savvy mother whose new husband claims to be responsible for Chicago’s Tylenol murders, a real, unsolved series of deaths in 1982 involving pain pills injected with poison? To figure out who is gaslighting whom? If you like twisty thrillers, you’ll love Bonnie Kistler’s Shell Games. What a perfect title! There are so many shell games that the characters play, trying to protect what is theirs and control those who have more.

Julie, who’s Kate’s daughter and Eric’s wife, tells the story of her glamorous mother’s wedding, followed by a call to the police when her long-lost sweetheart marries her and confesses to an unsolved mass murder on their wedding night. Kate, a real estate mogul, calls the police in hysterics. In the days that follow, she wanders the beach outside her Florida estate while most of Eric’s family wonders if she’s showing signs of dementia. Always the dutiful daughter, Kate stays at her mother’s place, while her husband begs her to come home as soon as she coerces her mom into cognitive tests.

Julie, who loves her mother even though she knows that the woman manipulates everyone, is befuddled, and the only person she can trust is a police officer, Brian, who listens and cares.

So, what’s really going on? Is Kate controlling her daughter from the grave? Did Kate’s new husband and Eric conspire to have her declared incompetent and take her money? The truth, whatever it may be, is hidden under a shell and the author is like a carney worker moving those three shells around and showing us the world as Julie sees it. This psychological thriller is deftly plotted. You’ll root for Julie and be shocked as more and more is revealed. Who is paranoid and what do the men in this book really want?

Bonnie Kestler is a graduate of Bryn Mawr, a former trial lawyer like her main character, and the author of Her Too, The Cage, and House on Fire.  If you love digging around in people’s brains and recognize that psychological thrillers are the place to do this, you should read Shell Games and revel in the journey.

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• The Trip
• By Phoebe Morgan
• ISBN #:  978-0063416789
• William Morrow Paperbacks (October 8, 2024)

What Could Go Wrong?

Have you ever been on a trip that turned into a nightmare? Or done a deed that haunted you? If so, you’ll identify with the characters in Phoebe Morgan’s The Trip.

Two couples in their thirties take a trip to beautiful Thailand. What could go wrong? Okay, so the hotel they were to stay at lost their reservations, and Theo lost his Rolex, and a spooky picture was taped to their locker in the hostel they stayed in that first night. It could happen to anybody, right?

When Holly loses her bag and a stranger named Caleb finds it and seeks her out, that removes all the glitches for her. But the foursome can’t get rid of Caleb. He shows up whether they’re having dinner, touring, or going to another island. Why can’t he take a hint and leave them alone? I promise you that there’s an ulterior motive and more than I can say here without revealing the character’s secrets in this carefully plotted story of a vacation gone awry.

Although the first half is a little slow, since the wording on the back cover warns readers of an impending murder, the building sense of dread, frustration, and inexplicable mystery will intrigue you. Characters, plot, setting, and even the drinking contribute to a story told in four points of view moving ever closer to controlling the problem that haunts them. Halfway through I thought I had it figured out, complete with complications, but the author’s complications were much better than mine.

This book is about guilt as well as unscrupulous behavior, jealousy, and money that’s flaunted too freely. If you love watching characters explore both bad behavior and its ramifications, you’ll love The Trip. If you’re a travel buff, you’ll appreciate the temples, food markets, and the details of this excursion to Thailand. If you love circumstances beyond a narrator’s control, you should definitely read this story.

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Author Phoebe Morgan is an award-winning editor as well as a bestselling author whose works have been translated into several languages. She studied English at Leeds University and lives in London. You can learn more about the author at https://phoebemorganauthor.com.

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• We Are Watching
• Written by Alison Gaylin
• ISBN #: 978-0-06-327518-8
• William Morrow, January 2025

The Stalking Is Real

Ever felt like someone was stalking you? Like there are too many coincidences shaping your life? Ever regretted something you wrote as a teenager? Every been obsessed about anything? If so, you don’t want to miss Alison Gaylin’s newest psychological thriller, We Are Watching.

Meg Russo was behind the wheel when her husband Justin was killed in a car accident. It wasn’t her fault. Another car drove them off the road as they were taking their daughter Lily to Ithaca College. In an instant the family was changed forever.

After Meg returns to work at the bookstore she and her husband owned, freaky messages and bizarre visitors threaten Meg, throwing rocks through the window and vandalizing the children’s section with a pyramid of books topped by… Oops! That could be a spoiler alert.

When she was 15 Meg wrote a young adult novel tiled The Prophesy , and a cult-like group is convinced the book promotes Satanism. These conspiracy theorists want revenge on three generations of Meg’s family, making Meg suspect that Justin’s death may have been deliberate and is the tip of an iceberg she’s on. Desperate to find answers and save herself and her father and daughter, she must force the conspiracy theorists to leave her family alone. Join her as she fights and discovers more and more enemies in her community… waiting for revenge and repentance.

One of Gaylin’s skills is telling a psychological suspense story that seems real. Her plot moves swiftly, but it’s the combination of vulnerability and fierce loyalty in her characters that will keep you turning pages. A USA Today and international bestselling author her work has won the Edgar and Shamus awards. 

Read about her at https://www.alisongaylin.com/. You might find yourself looking over your shoulder and staying away from the news as you read this startling story. Why? Read the book.

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“And in two months I’ll be thirty,” she muttered to no one in particular, since the shop was empty.

• The Cinnamon Bun Bookstore
• Written by Laurie Gilmore and Reviewed by Karin Cooper
• ISBN #: 978-0-00-864158-0
• Publisher: One More Chapter, August 2024 

Secrets of a Highlighted Sentence

Hazel, the bespectacled and introverted manager of the Cinnamon Bun Book Store, finds herself trapped in monotony despite being surrounded by tales of love and adventure. Her routine is disrupted when she notices a crooked book in the romance section. Initially irked by its dog-eared page, she discovers a highlighted sentence: “Come with me, lass, if you want adventure.” This proves to be the first of many secret messages, sparking Hazel’s desire for change. In an uncharacteristic move, she recruits Noah, a handsome and friendly fisherman who frequents her store, to help her follow the clues. And Noah, is more than up for a scavenger hunt because he has a secret too.

Together, this unlikely pair follows cryptic clues around Dream Harbor, seeking adventure before Hazel’s thirtieth birthday. The mystery of the message-leaver adds intrigue to their quest, which unexpectedly evolves into what Hazel believes is a casual fling with Dream Harbor’s most eligible bachelor. Noah joins the hunt not just for adventure, but because he has long had a crush on Hazel, though he fears he’s not accomplished enough for her. As they chase clues and grapple with growing feelings, their undeniable sexual chemistry threatens to transform their relationship into something neither anticipated.

As the summer progresses, Hazel begins to suspect that Noah might be behind the elaborate scavenger hunt, interpreting it as his clever way of courting her. This belief deepens her feelings, transforming what she initially saw as a casual fling into something more meaningful. However, their adventure takes an unexpected turn when the final clue leads them to a surprise party for Hazel’s 30th birthday. The revelation that her fathers and friends orchestrated the entire hunt leaves Hazel feeling hurt, disappointed and humiliated at the implication that her loved ones saw her as boring and incapable of finding her own excitement. In this moment of vulnerability, it’s Noah who sees through her facade behind her forced smile. Noah confesses his long-held love for Hazel. Hazel admits that she too has fallen in love during their summer of adventure.

The Cinnamon Bun Bookstore is Book 2 in Laurie Gilmore’s Dream Harbor Series. A writer who dedicated the book to her readers, thanking them “for coming back to Dream Harbor.”  It returns readers to the quirky and charming seaside town of Dream Harbor. The author focuses on Hazel, the bookstore manager, and Noah, a local fisherman, while reacquainting us with familiar and recurring characters from the first book. These characters are set to appear in subsequent books, weaving a continuous thread through the series and deepening the reader’s connection to Dream Harbor’s colorful community.  On the All About Romance sensuality scale, which ranges from Kisses to Hot (1 -5), this book is rated #4 as “Hot -explicit sensuality.” Grab a copy today.

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Karin Cooper often reviews for www.writeradvice.com. Her book choices bring variety, to our list and we like what she has to say. We might like your reviews too. Want to give us a try? Pitch us through our Contact Box on the home page. BTW, Ms. Cooper is also one of the winners in one of our Flash Memoir Contests. 

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“I can’t be because of me, right?  Hannah

• Loathe to Love You
• Edited by Ali Hazelwood and Reviewed by Karin Cooper
• ISBN: 978-0-593-63883-5
• Publisher: Berkley, January 2023

Navigating the Complexities of Love 

Loathe to Love You is a collection of three interconnected novellas celebrating the friendship of three brilliant women—Mara, Sadie, and Hannah—who first bonded during their time in graduate school at Cal Tech. Now, with freshly minted Ph.D.s and thriving in their dream careers, each faces a new and unexpected challenge: navigating the complexities of love.

Under One Roof

When environmental engineer Maya inherits half of a historic D.C. townhouse, she thinks she’s hit the jackpot—until she meets her new co-owner. Liam, an arrogant big-oil lawyer, seems determined to drive her out by messing with the thermostat and flashing ever-higher buyout offers. 

Stuck with You

When Sadie’s elevator gets stuck between floors, she thinks her day can’t get worse—until she realizes she’s trapped with Eric, the infuriating rival engineer who just swiped her career-making project. 

Below Zero

When aerospace engineer Hannah’s plane goes down near her Arctic research station, she figures things can’t get worse—until her only hope for rescue is Ian, the cocky NASA rival she’s spent years trying to avoid. Now, with a deadly storm bearing down and her injuries worsening, she’s forced to trust the last person she ever wanted to see again.

Ali Hazelwood’s second novel follows her New York Times bestseller, The Love Hypothesis. Drawing from her own experiences as a Ph.D. in neuroscience, Hazelwood creates a world she knows intimately. When she’s not writing romance novels, she contributes to academia by publishing peer-reviewed articles.

The stories are entertainingly interwoven as the three friends stay connected through regular Zoom calls. These virtual gatherings provide readers with deeper insights into their unique personalities, shared histories, and the enduring bond that carries them through life’s challenges.  On the All About Romance Sensuality Scale, which ranges from “Kisses Only” to “Burning” (1 to 5), this book earns a rating of 4, classified as “Hot – explicit sensuality.” Whether you only have time for novellas or love stories grab and hold you, this book is an excellent choice.