Colorways by Vicki Welsh

What an interesting month of reading! Frankie had great characters. Run For The Hills was a fun adventure. What Comes After was touching and the mysteries were all good.

What good books did you read this month? Have you read any of these books? If so, what did you think of them?

DNF

Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adam’s- We got this to listen to on the way home from Maine. We both thought it was stupid. I think I might have enjoyed it as a teenager.

I believe that this is a debut novel and it’s a really interesting one!

Isaac lives alone with his dog dealing with the grief of losing his wife and son in the past year. His son Daniel was murdered by his own best friend. Laurie, his next door neighbor, is the mother of the murderer. Her husband committed suicide some years before and now her son has done the same. She and her daughter are doing their best to survive.

I know, that all sounds depressing but this book starts with all the bad news and the book is about “what comes after”.

One day Evangeline, a pregnant orphaned teenager, shows up on Isaac’s doorstep with the help if his dog. Isaac and Laurie, each, form relationships with Evangeline and that brings Isaac and Laurie together periodically for some stressful moments. They each think that their son might be the father of the baby.

As the story progresses, Laurie’s son is also telling his story that explains everything that happened. It’s kind of advertised as a mystery but it’s not a mystery. It’s a book about healing, carrying secrets and community.

I haven’t read a Baldacci book in a very long time, since reading some of the Will Robie series in 2021. This one is so different from his espionage series and it’s very good!

The book is set in London in WWII and we have 3 main characters. Charlie Matters is 14 and has lost both of his parents and he leads a very scrimpy life with his Grandmother. He thieves to help keep them fed with her meager salary.

Molly Wakefield is 15. Five years before she was evacuated to the countryside to be safer. There she learned to be a nurse aid. She’s now returned to her home in London and finds that she’s been abandoned by both of her parents. All that’s left is her nanny, Mrs. Pride, who has been keeping the house running.

Through a series of events, they both meet Ignatius Oliver, owner of a bookshop called The Book Keep. He’s mourning the loss of his wife and eventually befriends both children.

Not only are they trying to evade the relentless bombing of the city, but Charlie has been noticed by the police for his escapades.

I love the characters and the story. There are lots of twists to keep a mystery aspect to the story.

Back when I actually watched TV on a regular basis, I occasionally watched the Graham Norton Show for a great laugh. I didn’t know that he also wrote books. This one popped up on a recommendation list so I decided to give it a try. Norton narrates the book himself and it’s masterful.

Frankie Howe grew up in Ireland in the 1950’s and was married to a church pastor right after finishing school. She wasn’t prepared for marriage but tried her best but it was doomed to fail.

She landed in London with her best friend and her life led her to New York where she eventually made a home and life for herself. Now she’s back in London, old and injured from a fall.

Her friend arranges for a caretaker to help her as she heals. Damien, a young Irish man, arrives to help her out. A question he asks sparker her to start to tell him the story of her life and, that’s what this book is, the story of Frankie’s life.

It’s not he best book I’ve ever read, but I loved Frankie and her story. I totally loved Norton’s narration.

This is the second book that I’ve read by Kevin Wilson. The other was Nothing To See Here. This one was, by far, the better one.

Madeline Hill (Mad) is an organic farmer in Tennessee with her mother. Her father abandoned them when she was young and she never heard from him again. Now she’s in her 30’s and reasonably content with her isolated, but successful, life.

One day a PT Cruiser rolls up the driveway and an academic-looking man, Reuben Hill (Rube), introduces himself as her half brother. He has also been abandoned by their father 10 years before Mad. His mother died recently and he hired a detective to find his father and learned about multiple siblings across the country. Rube convinces Mad to join him on a cross-country trek to meet the other siblings and find their father.

It’s part serious and a lot humorous. The striking thing for me is that it reminded me of someone I met at a quilt show years ago. He was a vendor in a booth next to me and, over drinks, he told me his story. He had been raised by a single mother who had been in the military. His “father” had been a superior rank person who refused to acknowledge his baby. As an adult, he was contacted by a half-sibling who had done research and found several other half-siblings….there were enough of them to set up a dedicated Facebook group! It was a wild story that got me prepared for this fiction story.

William Kent Krueger is one of my favorite authors. He writes the Cork O’Connor mystery series and also writes beautiful stand-alone novels. I believe that This Tender Land and Ordinary Grace will become American classics. I’m always recommending them.

Apostle’s Cove is from the mystery series and is #21 in the Cork O’Connor story. The series is set in the Northwoods of Minnesota, in Tamarack County where this is a large Ojibwe population. This book is a little different from the others because it covers two time periods, 25 years apart. The earliest is in 1988, around Halloween. Now it’s Halloween 25 years later and Cork receives a call from his son, Stephen. works with an organization dedicated to freeing wrongly convicted individuals. Stephen is sure that Cork sent the wrong man to prison in 1988 for the murder of the man’s wife.

Part 1 of the book covers the period and investigation of the original murder and part 2 is 25 years later when Cork re-opens the investigation. This time, he’s no longer sheriff and works the case independently with his adult daughter.

Like all of the books in the series, it’s fast-paced and well written. The characters are well-developed and the narration is perfect. I hope David Chandler never stops narrating these books.

This one is for historical fiction lovers. It is based on the story of Marguerite de La Rocque. She was a 16th century French noblewoman. She was orphaned young and her uncle is appointed her guardian. He may have cared more about her money. In 1542 he punished her be leaving her abandoned on an island during an expedition to colonize Canada. She, her lover and nurse lived for about 2 years until rescued by Basque fishermen. There’s very little historical detail about her life.

The novel explores survival, faith and resilience as the author fills in details about Marguerite’s life. It was a really enjoyable read and the time period seemed to be well researched.

I must have heard about this book from one of you because it’s been out for a few years. I don’t think it would have shown up on a recent recommendation list since they seem to focus on new releases. It was a good recommendation!

The small town of Eriston has a history of an unusual number of unsolved murders of women. It’s been going on for years.

Rebecca grew up in Eriston but left after school to follow a journalism career, liker her father. She hasn’t been great at keeping up with her father and is surprised when she gets the call that he’s died. She heads home to make arrangements and that’s when she finds out that he was murdered.

Rebecca begins delving into what her father was working on before he died and soon realizes that she’s being followed. Is it all tied to the previous unsolved murders?

Pretty well paced with well-developed characters. It was a fun read.