The Last Thing He Told Me

Author: Laura Dare
Genre: Mystery / Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2021
Pages: 320
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Before Own Michael's disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers - Owen's sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.

As Hannah's increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen's boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn't who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen's true identity - and why he really disappeared.

Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen's past, they soon realize they're also building a new future - one neither of them could have anticipated.

Review: I really enjoyed this novel and couldn't put it down. Some suspension of belief was required, but it kept my attention and kept me entertained. This is the first book I've read by this author, but I'm looking forward to more.

Local Woman Missing

Author: Mary Kubica
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Park Row Books, 2021
Pages: 353
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah vanish just blocks from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone want to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they'll find. . .

Review: What a page turner. I was hooked very early on. I gave this 4 stars because 1) I never saw "it" coming, and 2) all loose ends were tied. Initially I thought I hope to never read a book as messed up as this one ever again, but then I realized this is just one case where one bad decision leads to another, and then it just spirals from there. These characters were as flawed as you and I, and I think that was part of what kept me going as well.

Boardwalk Summer

Author: Meredith Jaeger
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins Publisher, 2018
Pages: 384
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Santa Cruz, Summer 1940: When auburn-haird Violet Harcourt is crowned Miss California on the boardwalk of her hometime, she knows she is one step closer to her cherished dream: a Hollywood screen test. But Violet's victory comes with a price - discord in her seemingly perfect marriage - and she grapples with how much more she is willing to pay.

Summer 2007: Single mother Marisol Cruz lives with her parents in the charming beach cottage that belonged to her grandfather, Ricardo, once a famed performer on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Drawn to the town's local history and the quaint gazebo where her grandparents danced beneath the stars, Mari sells raffle tickets at the Beach Boardwalk Centennial Celebration, and meets Jason, a California transplant from Chicago.

When Mari discovers the obituary of Violet Harcourt, a beauty queen who died too young, she and Jason are sent on a journey together that will uncover her grandfather's lifelong secret - his connection to Violet - a story of tragedy and courage that will forever transform them.

Review: I absolutely loved this book. It had so much substance, and the links between past and present made sense. It's been awhile since I read a book I didn't want to put down.

I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.

The Paper Palace

Author: Miranda Cowley Heller
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2021
Pages: 400
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: It is a perfect July morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at "The Paper Palace" - the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out of the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she has always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn't forever changed the course of their lives. As Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity.

Review: I liked the execution of this novel better than the story. Lots of flashbacks, but they worked to tell the present-day story. There were elements of the story I liked. The author brought the Cape Code area to life, as well as the paper palace itself. It as an interesting cast of characters, but I had no trouble keeping them all straight. 

The final flash from the past to present was surprising and satisfyingly done. This book also gave me the ending I wanted.

The Paper Palace is full of possible triggers, but it kept me turning pages.

Five Days Gone

Author: Laura Cumming
Genre: Biography
Publisher: Scribner, 2019
Pages: 320
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: In the fall of 1929, when Laura Cumming's mother was three years old, she was kidnapped from a beach on the Lincolnshire coast of England. There were no screams when she was taken, suggesting the culprit was someone familiar to her, and when she turned up again in a nearby village several days later, she was found in perfect health and happiness. No one was every accused of the crime. The incident quickly faded from her memory, and her parents never discussed it. To the contrary, they deliberately hid it from her, and she did not learn of it for a half a century.

This was not the only secret her parents kept from her. For many years, while raising her in a draconian isolation and protectiveness, they also hid the fact that she'd been adopted, and that shortly after the kidnapping, her name was changed from Grace to Betty.

Review: I honestly don't know why the author, and maybe more importantly the publisher, thought there was a story here. The title and synopsis makes it seem like this will be more compelling than it actually is. It's family lore, and for an outsider there is a lot of unimportant details and musings. Restructuring this novel would have done wonders for its readability, but again, I'm not sure it needed to be a published book to begin with.

The Winter Guest

Author: Pam Jenoff
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: MIRA, 2014
Pages: 352
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Life is a constant struggle for the eighteen-year-old Nowak twins as they raise their three younger siblings in rural Poland under the shasow of the Nazi occupation. The constant threat of arrest has made everyone in their village a spy, and turned neighbor against neighbor. Though rugged, independent Helena and pretty, gentle Ruth couldn't be more different, they are staunch allies in protecting their family from the threats the war brings closer to the their doorstep with each passing day.

Then Helena discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside their small mountain village, wounded, but alive. Risking the safety of herself and her family, she hides Sam - a Jew - but Helena's concern for the American grows into something much deeper. Defying the perils that render a future together all but impossible, Sam and Helena make plans for the family to flee. But Helena is forced to contend with the jealousy her choices have sparked in Ruth, culminating in a singular act of betrayal that endangers them all, and setting in motion a chain of events that will reverberate across continents and decades.

Review: Pam Jenoff wrote my favorite book of 2017, The Orphan's Tale, but the other two novels I read that she's written weren't on that level. This particular novel opens in present day and then flashes back, a technique I usually love. It's always good to know the main character is going to survive World War II.

Something about this novel moved slowly. I was never fully drawn in, anxiously turning pages. I hadn't realized that I could in fact read a World War II novel and not have my heart race, or be reduced to tears at some point. The constant push and pull of the main characters, twin sisters, over-complicated the story and didn't propel it forward.

I'm not giving up on Jenoff just yet though, and you can expect to read more reviews of her books in the future.

Other Books by Pam Jenoff:
The Orphan's Tale
The Lost Girls of Paris
The Kommandant's Girl