Bookends

Author: Zibby Owens
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Amazon Publishing, 2022
Pages: 300
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Zibby Owens has become a well-known personality in the publishing world. Her infectious energy, tasteful authenticity, and smart, steadfast support of authors started in childhood, a precedent set by the profound effect books and libraries had on her own family.

But after losing her closest friend on 9/11 and later becoming utterly stressed out and overwhelmed by motherhood, Zibby was forgetting what made her her. She turned to books and writing for help.

Just when things seemed particularly bleak, Zibby unexpectedly fell in love with a tennis pro turned movie producer who showed her the path to happiness: away from type-A perfectionism and toward letting things unfold organically. What unfolded was a meaningful career, a great love, and finally, her voice, now heard by millions of listeners.

Review: This was a book club selection, and since I don't generally enjoy "bookish" books, I put off reading it. However, I needed one more book to round out my month of reading so I decided to give it a try. 

This is a really good memoir, and the author knows how to write and set the pace for a story. I feel like book title dropping was a gimmick since there's no real tie-in with any of the books to what was going on in her life at the time. However, I ended up just ignoring those drops and stuck to the story. 

Beyond question, Owens has led a life of high highs and low lows, and I'm grateful she has shared her story with the world.

Spare

Author: Prince Harry
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Penguin Random House, 2023 (audio)
Pages: 416 (hardcover)
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow - and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling - and how their lives would play out from that point on.

For Harry, this is that story at last.

Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the most serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness - and, because he blamed the press for his mother's death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight.

At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn't find his true love.

Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple's cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. . .

Review: If you search my bookblog you will see that I read books about the British Royal Family from time-to-time. Reading Spare was a no-brainer.

I waitlisted this book at the library as soon as the buzz about it started. I logged in to check on my status on the list following it's actual availability and couldn't believe it had 783 total holds. I've never seen so many on a book.

I broke down and decided to use Audible, and I did a little happy dance when I saw I had credits to use.

Prince Harry does a great job narrating his own story. I read this like I would read anyone's memoir. It's life according to the author. One thing I've learned, no one gets through this life unscathed, and we all have crosses to bear. I wouldn't want to be royal, but neither would I choose to have a husband with serious health issues (and I do). One has no choice but to live the life they're given. The key to enjoying life is finding the good and positives more often than not.

Harry and Meghan's story is far from over, and only time will tell how this plays out.

Gilt

Author: Jamie Brenner
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2022
Pages: 384
Recommend: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: The Pavlin family built an empire on love. As the first jewelers to sell diamond engagement rings, they started a tradition that has defined the industry ever since. But when an ill-fated publicity stunt pits the three Pavlin sisters against one another for a famous family jewel, their bond is broken. No ordinary diamond ring, the Electric Rose splinters the sisters, leaving one unlucky in love, one escaping to the shores of Cape Cod, and the other, ultimately, dead.

Now, more than a decade later, the only Pavlin granddaughter, Gemma Maybrook, is still reconciling the reality of her mother's death. Left orphaned and cast out by her family after the tragic accident, Gemma is ready to reclaim what should have been hers: the Electric Rose. And, as a budding jewelry designer in her own right, Gemma isn't just planning on recovering her mother's lost memento, she's coming back for everything.

Review: What a fun read. It's impossible to choose a favorite Jamie Brenner novel, but this may  slightly edge out the others. This is the trifecta - plot, setting, and characters.

Other Jamie Brenner Novels:
Blush
Drawing Home
Summer Longing
The Forever Summer
The Husband Hour

Violeta

Author: Isabel Allende
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2022
Pages: 336
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics.

Review: A few years ago I read In the Midst of Winter by this author, and determined I would never read another book she wrote. In the Midst of Winter was absurdly farfetched. However, the cover of this book caught my eye, and it received good reviews. It also fit the Friends & Fiction January reading prompt - books with single word titles.

I loved this book. It captured my interest and attention early on, and I enjoyed the story. I don't plan to read everything Allende has written, but certainly, I would take a look at her novels and see if any sound good. 

I just loved Violeta the character and the telling of her story.

Caste

Author: Isabel Wilkerson
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2020
Pages: 496
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. using riveting stories about people - including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others - she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves againt; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

Review: This book was on my "to be read" list since it was published in 2020. I read The Warmth of Other Suns in 2018, and was excited to see this author had written another book. 

Since this year's Friends and Fiction reading challenge for January is book with a single word title, this seemed like as good a time as any to dive in. Initially I was taken aback by some of the statements/conclusions Wilkerson made, but she convincingly supported her arguments. I'm not 100% on board with everything she says, but there is a lot of food for thought in these pages. This book will stay with me for a long time, and has certainly given me a new perspective.

Cain

Author: Jose Saramago
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins Publisher, 2012
Pages: 176
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Saramago's tale runs from the Garden of Eden, when God realizes he has forgotten to give Adam and Eve the gift of speech, to the moment when Noah's Ark lands on the dry peak of Ararat. Cain, the despised murderer, is Saramago's protagonist.

Condemned to wander forever after he kills his brother Abel, Cain makes his way through the  world in the company of a personable donkey. He is witness to and participant in the stories of Isaac and Abraham, the destruction of the Tower of Babel, Moses and the golden calf, the trials of Job. The rapacious Queen Lilith takes him as her lover. An old man with two sheep on a rope crosses his path. And again and again, Cain encounters a God whose actions seems callous, cruel, and unjust. He confronts Him, he argues with Him.

Review: I am always up for reimagined or retelling of well-known stories, and actually found this book entertaining in parts. However, I also found my mind drifting while as was reading. If this was a longer book, I may have set it aside unfinished. 

Blush

Author: Jamie Brenner
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2022
Pages: 416
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: For decades, the Hollander Estates winery has been premier destination for lavish parties and romantic day trips on the North Fork of Long Island. But behind the lush vineyards and majestic estate house, the Hollander family fortunes have suffered and the threat of a sale brings old wounds to the surface. For matriarch Vivian, she fears that this summer season could be their last - and that selling their winery to strangers could expose a dark secret she's harbored for decades. Meanwhile, her daughter, Leah, who was turned away from the business years ago, finds her marriage at a crossroads and returns home for a sorely needed escape. And granddaughter Sadie, grappling with a crisis of her own, runs to the vineyard looking for inspiration.

But when Sadie uncovers journals from Vivian's old book club dedicated to scandalous novels of decades past, she realizes that this might be the distraction they all need. Reviving the "trashy" book club, the Hollander women find that the stories hold the key to their fight not only for the vineyard, but for the life and love they've wanted all along.

Review: Jamie Brenner is a reliably good author, and while this began a bit of a slower than her others, when I did get hooked in this novel, I was completely hooked. 

I love family sagas. Three generations of vivacious women each bringing something different to the story, but with common threads tying each of them together. Each character received equal playing time and a solid arc. It was impossible to choose a favorite.

One thing is certain, I will never look at wine the same way again.

Other Jamie Brenner Novels:
Drawing Home
Gilt
Summer Longing
The Forever Summer
The Husband Hour

Sequence

Author: Lori Andrews
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2006
Pages: 288
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Dr. Alexandra Blake has the job of a lifetime. As a cutting-edge geneticist at AFIP - the Armed Forces of Pathology in Washington, D.C., Alex is charged with using her research into the genetics of viruses to find a vaccine against bioterrorism. But the institute's new director, James Wiatt, wants to turn the AFIP into a mini FBI by directing its resources toward crime solving - an effort to rival the Bureau's forensic department. When a series of related murders falls under his jurisdiction, he gets his chance to prove the AFIP can compete with the Bureau.

Alex is forced to put her research on hold so she can cover forensics on the case, which involves a killer who murders woman near military bases across the country and then tattoos their corpses. At first she resents being distracted from her lab work, but as she becomes immersed in the case, Alex resolves to catch the killer. She knows it's only a matter of time before he leaves some evidence for Alex to trace back to him. But when another murder strikes closer to home for Alex and her colleagues - and her boyfriend, a congressman from Texas - it will take more than forensic science to keep them safe.

Review: What a way to kick off 2023! It's been awhile since I read a thriller, and I could not put this down. At first I wondered if I was in over my head - the language and details were quite "tech-y" in a field in which I have no experience, however, it evened out and I fell into the rhythm of the story.

I'm in a Friends & Fiction Book Club on Facebook, and the January prompt is, "a book with a one-word title." I plan to read a few one-word title books this month.