Beneath a Prairie Moon

Author: Kim Vogel Sawyer
Genre: Christian Historical Fiction
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group, 2018
Pages: 352
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Abigail Brantley grew up in affluence and knows exactly how to behave in high society. But when she is cast from the social registers due to her father's illegal dealings, she finds herself forced into a role she never imagined: tutoring rough Kansas ranchers in the subjects of manners and morals so they can "marry up" with their mail-order brides. Mack Cleveland, whose father was swindled by a mail-order bride, wants no part of the scheme to bring Eastern women to Spiveyville, Kansas, and he's put off by the snooty airs and fastidious behavior of the "little city gal" in their midst. But as time goes by, his heart goes out to the teacher who tries so diligently to smooth the rough edges from the down-to-earth men. How can he teach her that perfection won't bring happiness?

Review: In my 20s this was my go-to genre, and despite having read dozens of novels in this genre, this was "hokey." It's also probably the least substantive book I've ever read. That said, I loved it. It's cute. It warms your heart. It's light reading, which is exactly what I needed following the true crime novel I finished earlier this week.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark

Author: Michelle McNamara
Genre: True Crime
Publisher: HarperCollins Publisher, 2018
Pages: 352
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by her husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by Michelle’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may at last unmask the Golden State Killer.

Review: This was like watching Investigation Discovery or other crime shows, of which I'm a big fan. I don't know what it says about me, but my husband and I also got into a documentary on the Zodiac Killer in California.

This book was published in February 2018, and the GSK was caught 2 months later thanks to DNA evidence. However, the author had correctly tied many loose ends and created a relatively accurate profile. It's unfortunate she didn't live to see his arrest.

Had the author lived, I think this book may have been written in more cohesive way since she was the one with the initial vision, but it was still an excellent novel.

As I was finishing this book, we found a Cold Justice episode, I believe, that discussed the Golden State Killer. It was interesting.

Bring Me Back

Author: B. A. Paris
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2018
Pages: 304
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They’re driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone—never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story.

Ten years later Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close and now they intend to remain together. Still, there’s something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him...even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her.

Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla—hiding in plain sight. There are other odd occurrences: Long-lost items from Layla’s past that keep turning up around Finn and Ellen’s house. Emails from strangers who seem to know too much. Secret messages, clues, warnings. If Layla is alive—and on Finn’s trail—what does she want? And how much does she know?

A tour de force of psychological suspense, Bring Me Back will have you questioning everything and everyone until its stunning climax.

Review: I loved B.A. Paris' first novel, Behind Closed Doors, but the follow-up, The Breakdown,was predictable and fell short of being a true "thriller." I was hoping Paris would get back on track with this one, although early reviews suggested she didn't.

I started reading and was drawn in immediately. While I suspected the direction of this novel, I was never 100% confident of my theory so props to the author for that.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

Author: Susan Crandall
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Gallery Books, 2014
Pages: 336
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother’s Mississippi home. Starla hasn’t seen her momma since she was three—that’s when Lulu left for Nashville to become a famous singer. Starla’s daddy works on an oil rig in the Gulf, so Mamie, with her tsk-tsk sounds and her bitter refrain of “Lord, give me strength,” is the nearest thing to family Starla has. After being put on restriction yet again for her sassy mouth, Starla is caught sneaking out for the Fourth of July parade. She fears Mamie will make good on her threat to send Starla to reform school, so Starla walks to the outskirts of town, and just keeps walking. . . . If she can get to Nashville and find her momma, then all that she promised will come true: Lulu will be a star. Daddy will come to live in Nashville, too. And her family will be whole and perfect. Walking a lonely country road, Starla accepts a ride from Eula, a black woman traveling alone with a white baby. The trio embarks on a road trip that will change Starla’s life forever. She sees for the first time life as it really is—as she reaches for a dream of how it could one day be.

Review: It took me a few pages to fall into the rhythm of a 9 year old narrator, but I loved this book. I bought this story and every misadventure hook, line, and sinker. These characters will stay with me for a long time.

A Rebel Heart

Author: Beth White
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group, 2018
Pages: 384
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Five years after the final shot was fired in the War Between the States, Selah Daughtry can barely manage to keep herself, her two younger sisters, and their spinster cousin fed and clothed. With their family's Mississippi plantation swamped by debt and the Big House falling down around them, the only options seems to be giving up their ancestral land.

Pinkerton agent and former Union cavalryman Levi Riggins is investigating a series of robberies and sabotage linked to the impoverished Daughtry plantation. Positng as a hotel management agent for the railroad, he tells Selah he'll help her save her home, but only if it is converted into a hotel. With Selah otherwise engaged with renovations, Levil moves onto the property to "supervise" while he actually attends to his real assignment right under her nose. 

Selah isn't sure she entirely trust the handsome Yankee, but she'd do almost anything to save her home. What she never expected to encounter was his assault on her heart.

Review: When I needed a break from the fact-driven, highly researched family saga, The Lowells of Massachusetts, I picked up this book. It was lighter reading, but it started out slow. It was hard to cheer this couple on when Levi wasn't likeable and Selah wasn't believable. However, the last quarter of the book was fast-paced and interesting, and I was flying through pages.

My sister recommended Beth White to me, and I'll give this author another chance before I make my final judgement. I don't know if I'll continue with this series though.

The Lowells of Massachusetts

Author: Nina Sankovitch
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Picador, 2018
Pages: 400
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: The Lowells of Massachusetts were a remarkable family. They were settlers in the New World in the 1600s, revolutionaries creating a new nation in the 1700s, merchants and manufacturers building prosperity in the 1800s, and scientists and artists flourishing in the 1900s. For the first time, Nina Sankovitch tells the story of this fascinating and powerful dynasty in The Lowells of Massachusetts.

Though not without scoundrels and certainly no strangers to controversy, the family boasted some of the most astonishing individuals in America’s history: Percival Lowle, the patriarch who arrived in America in the seventeenth to plant the roots of the family tree; Reverend John Lowell, the preacher; Judge John Lowell, a member of the Continental Congress; Francis Cabot Lowell, manufacturer and, some say, founder of the Industrial Revolution in the US; James Russell Lowell, American Romantic poet; Lawrence Lowell, one of Harvard’s longest-serving and most controversial presidents; and Amy Lowell, the twentieth century poet who lived openly in a Boston Marriage with the actress Ada Dwyer Russell.

The Lowells realized the promise of America as the land of opportunity by uniting Puritan values of hard work, community service, and individual responsibility with a deep-seated optimism that became a well-known family trait. Long before the Kennedys put their stamp on Massachusetts, the Lowells claimed the bedrock.

Review: Very well-researched and structured, this was an epic novel. It was the sweeping saga style, rather than the family itself that got my attention. This was not a fast read, but I found it interesting. 

I'm well-versed in American History, but this put a new perspective on historical events since they were recounted from a single family's experiences.. For example, the Lowell's were Federalists and therefore opposed to Jefferson's Republican ideals. It's not very often you hear the dissenting side of Jeffersonian thought.

It was also heartbreaking to read how a generation of Lowell men was decimated during the Civil War. Most were killed shortly after enlisting too.

If you love American history, family sagas, and non-fiction, this novel will interest you.

Sixteen Brides

Author: Stephanie Grace Whitson
Genre: Christian Historical Fiction
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group, 2010
Pages: 352
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Sixteen Civil War widows living in St. Louis respond to a series of meetings conducted by a land speculator who lures them west by promising "prime homesteads" in a "booming community." Unbeknownst to them, the speculator's true motive is to find an excuse to bring women to the fledging community of Plum Grove, Nebraska, in hopes they will accept marriage proposals shortly after their arrival!

Sparks fly when these unsuspecting widows meet the men who are waiting for them. These women are going to need all the courage and faith they can muster to survive these unwanted circumstances--especially when they begin to discover that none of them is exactly who she appears to be.

Review: Forgive my fluffier reads lately, but this one is interesting from the perspective of how much thought and work goes into writing a novel with 16 main characters (that she whittles down to 8 pretty quickly, and not through untimely demises). I can only imagine what the author’s “roadmap” and character notes looked like. 

With eight main characters plus those in supporting roles, I wasn’t able to predict exactly how this would end so yay for that.

I can’t ever pass up a mail order bride story either.

Solid 4 stars.