The Harvey Girls

Author: Juliette Fay
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Gallery Books, 2025
Pages: 384
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: 1926: Charlotte Crowninshield was born into one of the finest Boston society families. Now she's on the run from a brutal husband, desperate to disappear into the wilds of the Southwest. Billie MacTavish is the oldest of nine children born to Scottish immigrants in Nebraska. She quit school in the sixth grade to help her mother's washing and mending business, but even that isn't enough to keep the family afloat.

Desperate, both women join the ranks of the Harvey Girls, waitresses who serve in America's first hospitality chain on the Santa Fe railroad. Hired on the same day, they share three things: a room, a heartfelt dislike of each other. . .and each has a secret that will certainly get them fired.

Through twelve-hour days of training in Topeka, Kansas, they learn the fine art of service, perfecting their skills despite bouts of homesickness, fear of being discovered, and a run-in with the KKK. When they're sent to work at the luxurious El Tovar hotel at the Grand Canyon, the challenges only grow, as Billie struggles to hid her young age from would-be suitors, and Charlotte discovers the little-known dark side of the national park's history.

Review: Unfortunately, I was born about 75 years too late to be a Harvey Girl, but my imagination was off and running. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I love historical fiction and this novel had a satisfying ending. If anything, I wanted more.

Softly, As I Leave You

Author: Priscilla Beaulieu Presley
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2025
Pages: 336
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Priscilla Presley's divorce from Elvis left his fans incredulous. How could she leave the man that every woman wanted. From the outside, life in Elvis' mansion looked glamorous and enviable, and in many respects, it was. But from inside the mansion, her husband was constantly surrounded by a male entourage while at the gates, beautiful women waited hopefully for an audience with the King. From the time she was seventeen years old, that life was all Priscilla had known. During her ten years with Elvis, it became painfully apparent that she had no idea who she was outside Elvis' world. The only way to find herself was to leave that world and seek a new life of her own, because leaving was the only way to survive, for herself and for her daughter.

Softly, As I Leave You, is the deeply personal story of what Priscilla lost and what she found when she walked away from the man she loved. Despite the legal separation, their love for one another was transformed into a touching and tender dynamic that endured until Elvis' untimely death four years later. Shattered by Elvis' passing, she had to reinvent herself a second time as the single mother of a talented, often headstrong daughter who never really recovered from her father's death. Priscilla's dedication to motherhood was enriched by the birth of her second child, and she gradually found her footing as a businesswoman, actress, designers, and legislative advocate. She transformed Graceland into an international destination and helped guide the development of Elvis Presley Enterprises. But the unexpected, shattering loss of three immediate family members years later brought Priscilla to her knees. 

Review: Sadly, I did not love this book. For some reason I had expected more reflective insights. Priscilla Presley met Elvis when she was very young and had a child when still practically a child herself. I don't doubt that she did the best she could. However, now in her 80s, I expected to have some accountability or take some responsibility for some of her children's issues, and I don't know that she has. She speaks matter-of-factly and how there wasn't much she could have done. This memoir did not make me love Priscilla or cause me to feel much empathy toward her.

The Noel Stranger

Author: Richard Paul Evans
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Gallery Books, 2018
Pages: 352
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Maggie Walther feels like her world is imploding. Publicly humiliated after her husband, a local councilman, is arrested for bigamy, and her subsequent divorce, she has isolated herself from the world. When her only friend insists that Maggie climb out of her hole, and embrace the season to get her out of the her funk, Maggie decides to put up a Christmas tree and heads off to buy one - albeit reluctantly. She is immediately taken by Andrew, the kind, handsome man who owns the Christmas tree lot and delivers her tree. She soon learns that Andrew is single and new to her city and, like her, is also starting his life anew.

As their friendship develops, Maggie slowly begins to trust again - something she never thought possible. Then, just when she thinks she has finally found happiness, she discovers a dark secret from Andrew's past. Is there more to this stranger's truth than meets the eye?

Review: This book started out okay, but very quickly (and unexpectedly) starts to turn a little dark. I know this author doesn't write thrillers, but I actually kind of wanted it to go that way.

I didn't like any of the characters. Maggie was weak and whiny, Andrew was creepy, and Karina was just blah. Sadly, this book was a miss for me.

Richard Paul Evans Novels
Noel Street

We Don't Talk About Carol

Author: Kristen L. Berry
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing, 2025
Pages: 336
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: In the wake of her grandmother's passing, Sydney Singleton finds a hidden photograph of a little girl who looks more like Sydney than her own sister or mother. She soon discovers the mystery girl in the photograph is her aunt, Carol, who was one of six North Carolina Black girls to go missing in the 1960s. For the last several decades, not a soul has talked about Carol or what really happened to her. But now, with her grandmother gone and Sydney looking to start a family of her own, she is determined to unravel the truth behind her long-lost aunt's disappearance, and the sinister silence that surrounds her.

Unfortunately, this is familiar territory for Sydney: Years earlier, while she worked the crime beat as a journalist, her obsession with the case of another missing girl let to a psychotic break. And now, in the suffocating grip of fertility treatments and a marriage that's beginning to crumble, Sydney's relentless pursuit for answers might just lead her down the same path of self-destruction. As she delves deeper into Carol's fate, her own troubled past reemerges, clawing its way to the surface with a vengeance. The web of secrets and lies entangling her family leaves Sydney questioning everything - her fixation on the missing girls, her future as a mom, and her trust in those she knows and loves.

Review: What a debut! I hope we see a lot more from this author.

This will likely be my favorite book of the year. This author poured her heart and soul into this layered, multifaceted, slow burn novel. I stayed up late and woke up early just to sneak more time in with this book. Five very bright stars.

Hotshot

Author: River Selby
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic Inc., 2025
Pages: 304
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: From 2000 to 2010, River Selby was a wildland firefighter whose given name was Anastasia. This is a memoir of that time in their life - of Ana, the struggles she encountered and the constraints of what it means to be female-bodied in a male-dominated industry. An illuminating debut from a fierce new voice, Hotshot is a timely reckoning with both the personal and environmental damages of wildland firefighting.

By the time they were nineteen, Selby had been homeless, addicted to drugs, and sexually assaulted more than once. In a last-ditch effort to find direction, they applied to be a wildland firefighter. Two years later, they joined an elite class of specially trained wildland firefighters known as hotshots. Over the course of five fire seasons, Selby delves into the world of the people - almost entirely men - who risk their lives to fight and sometimes prevent wildfires. Simultaneously hyper visible and invisible, Selby navigated an odd mix of camaraderie and rampant sexism on the job and, when they challenged it, a violent closing of ranks that excluded them from the work they'd come to love.

Drawing on years of firsthand experience on the frontlines of fire and years of research, Selby examines how the collision of fire suppression policy, colonization, and climate change has led to fire fire seasons of unprecedented duration and severity. A work of rare intimacy, Hotshot provides new insight into fire, the people who fight it, and the diversity of ecosystems dependent on this elemental force.

Review: I grew up in a fire service family. My dad was volunteer firefighter and eventually a fire chief, for my entire childhood, as well as a state fire instructor. My first baby pictures were taken of me at the fire station, and there are many. We spent hours helping raise money for the fire department through various fundraisers and I still love the smell of an "engine room" (the part of a fire station where the trucks are parked). My brother is now fire chief of his local department as his full-time, paid career. I work for a company that designs and manufactures many products used in the fire service industry, SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus), thermal imaging cameras, turnout gear, boots etc. You can imagine that Hotshot caught my attention when this book arrived via a "New Release" email.

Overall, I wanted more memoir and less research, but there is food for thought throughout. It was good reading.

The Mistletoe Mystery

Author: Nita Prose
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2024
Pages: 128
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Molly Gray has always loved the holidays. When Molly was a child, her gran went to great lengths to make the season merry and bright, full of cherished traditions. The first few Christmases without Gran were hard on Molly, but this year, her beloved boyfriend and fellow festive spirit, Juan Miguel, is intent on making the season Molly's most joyful yet.

But when a Secret Santa gift exchange at the Regency Grand Hotel raises questions about who Molly can and cannot trust, she dives headfirst into solving her most consequential - and personal - mystery yet. Molly has a bad feeling about things, and she starts to wonder: has she yet again mistaken a frog for a prince.

Review: This was my first Nita Prose novel, and it was cute. I picked up the clues right away and it went as expected. However, this is about the the time of year I start dreaming about Christmas so it was fun to read a Christmas novella.

Rosarita

Author: Anita Desai
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Scribner, 2025
Pages: 112
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Away from her home in India to study Spanish, Bonita sits on a bench in El Jardin de San Miguel, Mexico, basking in the park's lush beauty, when she slowly becomes aware that she is being watched. An elderly woman approaches her, claiming that she knew Bonita's mother - that they had been friends when Bonita's mother had lived in Mexico as a talented young artist. Bonita tells the stranger that she must be mistaken; her mother was not a painter and she had never traveled to Mexico. Though the stranger leaves, Bonita cannot shake the feeling that she is being followed.

Days later, haunted by the encounter, Bonita seeks out the woman, who she calls The Trickster, and follows her on a tour of what may, or may not, have been her mother's past. As a series of mysterious events brilliantly unfold, Bonita is unable to escape The Trickster's presence, as she is forced to confront questions of truth and identity, and specters of familial and national violence.

Review: Once we cross into Magical Realism, authors lose me. I can't follow what isn't grounded in reality. The author's language and descriptions were en pointe, but the story was lost on me. I couldn't follow what was real and what wasn't.