⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Three 5-Star Books and a Weird One!🎉

 

    What a great book to start off the year! The Frozen River is the first book I've read by Ariel Lawhon, and it won't be the last. Lawhon creates a spirited, compassionate protagonist in Martha Ballard, a real-life midwife. The book is based on the journals she kept from 1785-1812. Lawhon weaves a captivating life story in colonial America, birth, murder, and justice.

🪵🥶👶🏻🦊

    Guide Me Home by Attica Locke is the third and final book in the Highway 59 series. I have been reluctant to read it because Locke creates a flawed, tragic hero in Darren Matthews, a black Texas Ranger. His twin uncles raise him after the death of his father, convincing his sixteen-year-old mother to give him up. Darren reflects Texas: independent, burdened with racism, and proud of its history, but refusing to see the hidden damage. Darren wants to love his state but is being crushed by its shortcomings. He fights to regain his hope and confidence, but he must face the pain of his past to move into his future. Locke created a beautiful, complex man who lives a powerful story of an honorable man. I highly recommend it.

Here are my reviews of the previous books in the series: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Attica+Locke

⭐️🛣️🌲

    This is my second time reading Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. After the shooting death of his older brother, a young man, Will, is wrestling with the rules of his community: No crying, No snitching, Revenge. Will doesn't cry and doesn't snitch. He takes his brother's gun and gets on the elevator to get revenge. As he descends, he meets those whose lives reflect following the rules. They challenge Will to consider his plans.

"ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE RULES

They weren't meant to be broken.
They were meant for the broken

to follow."

😵🚬🚬🚬🚬🚬🚬🛗

    If the title didn't clue you in--The Village Library Demon Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner--let me assure you, this was a weird book. Like if Agatha Christie's Miss Marple suddenly discovered St. Mary Mead had a demon problem. The book is quirky but enjoyable. I wondered where it would go next. The mystery solver, a 60+ librarian named Sherry Pinkwhistle, is the one everyone turns to when there is a suspicious death in the community. Then, she becomes suspicious of so many suspicious deaths. She assembles her crime-solving, demon-hunting squad, including her possessed cat, Sir Thomas Cromwell, and they get to work. 

🐈👿📚

A Mystery Week! Win!

 

    Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke is the recently released sequel to Bluebird, Bluebird. It is excellent. The situation is critical. A child is missing. This child is the son of an inmate from the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT). The ABT leader begs Darren to find his son, Levi. In the last six months, Darren Matthews has worked to get his life under control--marriage counseling, avoiding alcohol, working a desk--and life is going better, but then (surprise!) events take a turn for the worst. Locke knows how to create a flawed character that I root for and groan in pain when Darren mudslides down into a slough of poor choices. He is not only fighting himself, but also others who want to exploit him. Texas history creates a dilemma for a small Texas town where former Confederates and former slaves live side by side and where Levi is missing.

    As a mystery, this book, and series, is dark, complex, and brooding. It reminds me of the gritty, can't-catch-a-break detectives of the 40s, but with more depth. 

    How many books does Locke have planned? I don't know how much more Darren and I can take!

🏠🏚️🏠🏚️🏠

    I am rereading Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie for Book Club. So shout out to the Bookies! Agatha Christie wrote sixty-six crime novels plus several romance books under a pseudynm, and the longest ever running play, Mousetrap. This book was originally published in 1934, so Christie books have staying power. 

    I've been researching to sound smart at book club. Can you tell?

    Christie is a genius at crime novels and this is probably the best of the best. I have read it several times, but I'm never bored. It has great characters, if a little stereo-typed in their European nationalities. A fast-paced plot that utilizes its train setting excellently.

    Before we were married, my future husband and I watched the 1974 movie. I had already seen it and been blown away by the ending. I wasn't even close to solving it and wanted to test my future spouse's intelligence. My husband-to-be figured it out! Keeper.

🚂🔎

Mucho Mystery

 

    I picked How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America, edited by Lee Child, on a whim at a local Indi bookstore. Then my book club decided to do a year of mystery books, and this was a valuable resource for different genres and exposure to new authors. Hello, Craig Johnson of Longmire fame. It has essays from many big names in the mystery game, like Lee Child, Charlaine Harris,  Deborah Crombie, Jeffery Deaver, etc. I read it straight through because maybe there's something about children's mystery literature I may need to know one day. Surprise, it's more than Encyclopedia Brown. I can't think of a topic it didn't cover--character development, building community, and legal considerations are a few. A debate I enjoyed was the Pantsers versus the Outliners. Some authors write by the seat of their pants and go where the story takes them; others OUTLINE everything. Jeffery Deaver's essay "Always Outline!" is followed by Lee Child's "Never Outline!" Both are insightful and humorous. If you are a reader, and I suspect you are, or a writer, this is a worthwhile book. I read it over several months, an essay at a time. It is a solid resource and also entertaining.

🔎🔎🔎🔎🔎

    This is my second read of Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke. My mystery book club is reading it for Black History Month. Here is the link to my previous review, and not to brag, but I was pretty eloquent: mostly-mysteries.html

I didn't think I would need to reread it because the story was memorable, but so much happens, and there are unexpected connections and family ties that I needed to. There are several murders, and I like that Locke tied them all up at the end. It is annoying when I get to the end of a mystery book, and the killer isn't revealed clearly. 😡

I benefitted from the reread, seeing things I hadn't noticed before. It wrestled with the dichotomy of home and belonging. Home, for Darren Matthews, is East Texas, a place that doesn't value or welcome him, a black man and a Ranger. This creates a continuing churn that gives the novel tension. I find Bluebird, Bluebird to be well-crafted with genuine, gritty characters. If you haven't read it, give it a try. 

🔎📚🕵🏾‍♀️📚🕵🏾‍♀️📚🔍

Mostly Mysteries 🔎

    What a good reading week I've had! I read three excellent books.

 

    The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz surprised me. At first, I didn't like it because it was full of unpleasant, selfish people, but then they grew up. When I googled The Latecomer, auto-complete said things like: is it true? I had those questions as well because Korelitz grounded the book in reality. Outsider artist Achilles Gildo Rizzoli's art is a critical ingredient in the plot. achilles-g-rizzoli Other "real life" characters had me checking to see if I was reading a novel. One review called it a "comic novel," but I found it a portrayal of family members trying to get their needs met at the expense of others. It is an intriguing book that I enjoyed. I frequently googled the people and events mentioned. It was intricate, thought-provoking, and unpredictable. I don't know if Korelitz would say this, but I found the story's moral to be that therapy can make you a better person. It worked for the characters in this book. 

    I listened to the audiobook Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto. A disclaimer at the beginning explained that the English the aunties spoke wasn't intended to mock Asian people, but to represent them. I learned so much from this book! The characters are Indo-Chinese, meaning in the past, family ancestors migrated from China to Indonesia and then to an English-speaking area like Hong Kong or the United States. The Aunties speak Chinese and Indonesian fluently, but English is more challenging. Many funny moments revolve around the Aunties not understanding what someone means in English and Meddie not comprehending what the Aunts are saying in Chinese and Indonesian. The main character, Meddelin Chan, is a mid-twenty-year-old photographer who helps with the family wedding business. Her male cousins all move away as soon as possible and encourage Meddie to do the same. Meddie believes there is a curse on her family that causes all the men to leave--all the aunts are divorced. So when Meddelin accidentally kills a date her mother set her up with, she turns to her aunts, and they ride to rescue. This is a screwball comedy book that also does an excellent job as a mystery. 

    Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke was recommended on the podcast What Should I Read Next several times, and I've had it on hold for over a month. It was worth the wait. Darren Mathews' family has lived in Texas for generations. He dropped out of law school to start the journey to becoming a Texas Ranger after the murder of James Byrd Jr, a Texas black man, by three white men from the same town. Byrd was dragged behind a pickup for several miles until he was decapitated. Mathews is pulled in several directions. He tries to live by the Ranger code, but circumstances make it difficult. He is called upon to look into the death of a black man in the small town of Lark, Texas, but only when a young white woman is found dead days after the first death. I gave this book five stars because it tells a suspenseful, tangled story. I was guessing until the end who the killer was. I knew who I wanted it to be. This is the first in a series, and I can't wait for more. 

2023 Year In Review 📚📖

    I keep a list of what I've finished reading on Goodreads. I highly recommend it. I set a goal to read 100 books this year, and Goodreads says I read 138, but there might be some duplicates. 

Books that have stayed with me:

Most Poignant: Signal Fires Danielle Shapiro and Dear Edward by Anne Napolitano

Favorite Use of Multiple Narrators: Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal and Trust by Hernan Diaz

Insightfully Painful: Babel R. F. Kuang and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Favorite Captivating Title: I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Surprisingly Useful Book: The Art of Making Memories by Meik Wiking

Excellent Fantasy Series: City of Brass Series by S. A. Chakraborty

Octopuses are Now My Favorite Animal: Remarkable Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt and The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

Africanfuturist Science Fiction Horror: Binti Series by Nnedi Okorafor

Best Audiobook: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, narrated by Meryl Streep

Best Could This Really Happen: Whalefall by Daniel Kraus

Fictional Mind Blowing: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Mind Blowing Memoir: How to Stay Married by Harrison Scott Key

Favorite Book of the Year:

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

MY 2023 BOOKS

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