Evenings at Five

Author: Gail Godwin
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing, 2003
Pages: 128
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Every evening at 5:00, Christina and Rudy stopped work and began the ritual commonly known as Happy Hour. Rudy mixed Christina's drink with loving precision, the cavalier slosh of Bombay Sapphire over ice shards, before settling across from her in his Stickley chair with his glass of Scotch. They shared a love language and music (she is an author, he a composer, after all), a delight in intense conversation, a fascination with popes, and nearly thirty years of life together.

What did I think? That we had forever? muses Christina, even months after Rudy's unexpected death. While coming to terms with her loss, with the space that Rudy once inhabited, Christina reflects on their vibrant bond, with all it's quirks, habits, and unguarded moments, as well as her passionate sorry and her attempts to reposition herself and her new place in the very real world they shared.

Review: This novel got me thinking about the routines and habits my husband and I have. Our evenings together generally start about 8:30 pm with tea (for me) and popcorn (for him). We cycle through our shows, chat, and then go to bed. I look forward to 8:30, always. Sometimes I'll even ask him if it's 8:30 yet just because the day has been so crazy, or I need a break from life.

Hour of the Witch

Author: Chris Bohjalian
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2022
Pages: 406
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life.

But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary - a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony - soon becomes herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must right to not only escape her marriage, but also the gallows.

Review: I read Secrets of Eden in 2011 and was not sure I cared to read another Chris Bohjalian novel. However, this book came up as an October suggestion and I do like this period in American history so I gave him another chance. Regrettable.

Chris Bojahlian is not an author for me, but I stuck with this book to meet a Goodreads Reading Challenge. That said, there are some takeaways. The Puritan world of the 1600s was rife with hypocrisy behind their masks of piety and religious zeal. And please, if you believe woman have it so bad in 2026, research life in Colonial America. This was a difficult novel to read, from the author's writing style to the subject matter.

Chris Bohjalian Novels
Secrets of Eden

Eleanor & Park

Author: Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing, 2013
Pages: 336
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits-smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you'll remember your own first love-and just how hard it pulled you under.

Review: I added this novel to my "TBR" list in 2013, and there it has sat for 13 years. I had it out from the library a few years, but didn't get around to reading it at that time. So, here we are. What a cute novel, and a bit heartbreaking too. I felt for Eleanor and for kids I went to school with that likely didn't have the best home life. 

I'm glad I kept this novel on my To Be Read shelf all these years and that I finally got around to reading it.

The Lincoln Highway

Author: Amor Towles
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023
Pages: 592
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, this father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction - to the City of New York.

Review: The title of this book piqued my interest and was right up my alley, but it's deceptive too. While The Lincoln Highway was a part of this book, it wasn't the focus, which was disappointing. Over the course of this novel, I learned one important thing - epic journeys/odyssey's/coming-of-age novels annoy me. Stop making one bad decision after another. Stop letting the characters around you make bad decisions. I just can't.

Telling myself that this was 1954 didn't do anything to ease my frustration.

Woolly's brother-in-law should have read the riot act to all of the participants in this ridiculous novel, but at least someone in this novel had a modicum of common sense.

The Lincoln Highway was superior to This Tender Land, which I did not enjoy at all, but I'll be avoiding this subgenre in the future. I feel like I miss the point and I need to ask someone who loves this genre, what exactly they like about it. I just end up completely unsatisfied.

Meet Me in Paris

Author: Kristin Harmel
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Gallery Books, 2026
Pages: 368
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Julia Glover has brought her twenty-three-year-old daughter, Piper, to Paris for the first time - but they know it will also be their last trip here together. Julia is dying, and as the mother and daughter desperately try to make memories together as the clock ticks down, the world opens up around them. Piper meets a cute French waiter, who might just understand her better than anyone she's ever met, and Julia meets a man at a dive bar and struggles with how to tell him the truth about her future.

Rock star Jackson Quick's glory days are behind him. He had a handful of hit songs thirty years ago, but he hasn't toured in a decade. This week, he'll launch his reunion tour in Paris, the city where it all began. But he wants more out of life than being defined by fame. When he meets a woman who finally sees him for who is as at his core, the ground shifts beneath his feet.

Henry McGee has been writing hit songs for decades - including Jackson Quick's biggest hit, City of Light. But his secret is that every love song he's ever written is for a woman named Celeste, whom he loved a lifetime ago, when they were both teenagers in Paris during World War II. He has spent eighty years believing she died - but when a letter arrives telling him the opposite, he's on the first flight to France. Can he break through the haze of her dementia, using the songs he's written all these years, to remind her of who they once were to each other - and to tell her he came back for her.

Henry's granddaughter, Melanie, has just discovered that her husband of twenty years, Gilles, a French cosmetics executive, is having an affair. When she confronts him, he tearfully apologizes and begs her to forgive him. But can she? And, perhaps even more importantly, does she want to? Or is there a different kind of life out there for her if she chooses to be alone.

These intertwining stories - plus several others - unfold over a few breathtaking spring days, as an unforgettable group of Americans in Paris must find their way to their own versions of happily ever after in the City of Light.

Review: Kristin Harmel was an author of fiction prior to falling into historical fiction. I like her as a fiction author, and I enjoyed my armchair getaway to Paris. Fiction doesn't have to be fluff, and I wish she would have given us more depth. That said, highly recommend.

Kristin Harmel Novels
The Paris Daughter
The Sweetness of Forgetting
The Winemaker's Wife

Stars over Sunset Boulevard

Author: Susan Meissner
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2016
Pages: 400
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Los Angeles, Present Day. When an iconic hat worn by Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind ends up in Christine McAllister's vintage clothing boutique by mistake, her efforts to return it to its owner take her on a journey more enchanting than any classic movie. . .

Los Angeles, 1938. Violet Mayfield sets out to reinvent herself in Hollywood after her dream of becoming a wife and mother falls apart, and lands a job on the film-set of Gone With the Wind. There, she meets enigmatic Audrey Duvall, a once-rising film star who is now a fellow secretary. Audrey's zest for life and their adventures together among Hollywood's glitterati enthrall Violet. . .until each woman's deepest desires collide.

Review: Susan Meissner wrote a novel against the backdrop of the filming of Gone With the Wind and the Golden Age of Hollywood. There isn't any book that she's written, that I won't read. I loved the setting, the characters, and the plot. This novel was a treat.

Nellie's Promise

Author: Valerie Tripp
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Pleasant Company Publications, 2004
Pages: 85
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Nellie O'Malley has a home again. She and her little sisters, Bridget and Jenny, are happily settling in with Samantha's family in New York City. Best of all, Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia want to adopt the girls. Now Nellie's best friend Samantha will be her sister, and Bridget and Jenny will be protected and cared for, just as Nellie promised her mother. Then Uncle Mike shows up again and threatens to ruin everything-including Nellie's friendship with Samantha!

Review: This book was written years after the Samantha series, but since I'm reading up on all things Samantha, I decided to read it for the first time. I'm glad they included a book about Nellie, especially since this is juvenile historical fiction. It may introduce that age group to a time/circumstances of which they know very little.