The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

320 pages

Published October 2023

Publisher’s Summary: 

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. 

My Thoughts: 

Any time I pick up a book that features a minority or a different culture, I’m interested to learn more about the author. Is he or she writing from a place of knowledge? In this case, she is. Peters is, according to the book jacket, a writer of Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry, who was the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award, and who lives in Nova Scotia, where much of the book is set. She is, in fact, of mixed Mi’kmaq and European heritage. This book is inspired by the real-life Mi’kmaq families who pick berries. All that contributes to a higher estimation of the book for me, knowing it’s not just researched, but lived. 

I pondered how I was going to write this review without giving anything away because I couldn't remember reading the summary many weeks ago. Then I copied the summary over here and realized this book isn't even a mystery to anyone who's read and remembers what it says. So bearing that in mind, it won't be a surprise that when I started reading Norma's first section of the book (the book alternates chapters between Joe and Norma) and realized that Peters was either really bad at dropping subtle clues or had no interest in keeping readers in the dark. The truth of the matter is that this is not a book that spends its entirety in search of Ruthie; instead it's a book about the damage that a traumatic event can cause on everyone involved. 

For Joe's family, Ruthie's disappearance is only the first of the traumas the family will suffer. Joe suffers the most visibly, living with the unbearable weight of guilt and loss. His pain manifests as violence, ultimately causing him to commit a violent act that he can't forgive himself for. So he chooses to hit the road, to punish himself and protect those he loves. We learn what Joe's life has been like as he looks back on it as he lies dying from cancer. Norma has suffered her own pain and loss. The emotional damage her parents have suffered hangs over her for the rest of her life. She grows up certain that she wasn't born to her parents but is unable to find the truth, even from those who claim to love her. 

As I neared the end of the book and struggled with what I thought might be the right way to end the book. Should Peters break our hearts? Or should Norma finally be reunited with her family? Should Joe finally find peace? Let's just leave it at this - I was happy with the way the book ended. If you recall I like a book that doesn't have a happily-ever-after ending. But then, too, some books need one. You'll just have to read this one for yourself to find out. 

One last note: this book will make for a great book club discussion, touching as it does on so many themes.

The Windsor Affair by Melanie Benjamin

The Windsor Affair by Melanie Benjamin

384 pages

Published June 2026 by Random House Publishing Group

My copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher’s Summary: 

Feuding Windsor brothers and their wives—some things, it seems, never change. The Windsor Affair recreates the cataclysmic events that nearly toppled the monarchy and incited the power struggle between Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and Wallis Simpson. Told from the perspective of both women, the novel propels readers into the fabulous world of the debonair Prince of Wales, café society of the 1930s, and the glittering private lives of the Windsors. The first novel to be dedicated to this infamous rivalry, The Windsor Affair brings us all the gossip and intrigue between the two very different—yet perhaps more similar than they would admit—wives of royals.

As Queen, Elizabeth would become the symbol of British pluck and courage during World War II and remain a British institution the rest of her long life. Wallis would be forever forced to enact the World’s Greatest Love Story even after it sours, as she goes from being admired to vilified and, ultimately, pitied. Against the backdrop of the Abdication Crisis, World War II, coronations, funerals, births, and deaths, these two women maintain a biting, sharp-tongued feud—until age and the long arm of history bring about a kind of understanding. For the last communication between these bitter rivals was a simple, surprising message: “In friendship, Elizabeth.”

My Thoughts: 

This is the eighth book by Benjamin that I’ve read and it gave me everything I’ve come to expect from her. Benjamin's books are always centered around real women who have played a role in history, two topics I love. Frequently they are women whose place in history has been overlooked; sometimes the women are very well known, as in this case. 

Over time, I've read a fair amount about Edward VIII (later known as the Duke of Windsor) and Wallis Simpson and I long ago gave up the idea that theirs was a great love story that stood the test of time. What I didn't know about was the feud between Simpson and Queen Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth was much beloved in England as the Duchess of York, after marrying Albert "Bertie", the Duke of York and second in line to the throne. Her hope was to remain in those roles for the remainder of their lives. It allowed them to spend a lot of time together and with their daughters and allowed Bertie to remain out of the spotlight, where his stammer would be less noticeable. 

The first in line to the throne, Edward, the Duke of Wales was a known womanizer, particularly when it came to married women. Wallis Simpson was American, once divorced, and, at that time, married woman who loved a good party, wore stylish clothing, and had a biting humor who set her sights on Edward. 

In January of 1936, King George V died and Edward became king. The family felt certain that Edward would do the right thing and walk away from Wallis, as it was inconceivable that he could remain king if he married her. Edward insisted that he could, and would, in fact do just that. In the end, he was not, as we know, allowed to marry her as king, abdicating the throne to Bertie. 

And here's what I didn't know about all of that: 

• Stylish Wallis looked down her nose at Elizabeth, who continued to wear clothing designed by the woman who had designed her mother's clothing, and made no secret of it. Elizabeth looked dowdy and was constrained by doing things the right (the royal) way. 
• Elizabeth had once been the apple of the public's eye; but the public, surprisingly, got caught up in the great love story and adored Wallis. 
• Elizabeth was very unhappy with Edward's abdication, putting Bertie, as it did, into a highly stressful and very public role that vastly changed both their private and public lives. 
• Wallis and Elizabeth publicly avoided each other as much as possible and their "feud" was very much public knowledge. 

And here's what I'm not sure if fact or fiction - was Elizabeth instrumental in making sure that Wallis and Edward were not allowed to marry if he remained king? Was she instrumental in making Bertie (King George VI) forbid the royal family from having any contact with Edward and Wallis? In Benjamin's world she did. Given what I know about the amount of research puts into each book, I can't help but think that there's some truth to those things in this book. Regardless, it makes for a wonderful tale of two strong women, neither of whom got what they ended up wanting out of life. 

Life: It Goes On - April 26

Happy Sunday! It's a cool, grey day here in Omaha, with rain in the forecast. But that's not going to stop me from getting outside and starting to plant all of the things I've picked up this week. When I tell you that I loaded up a big cart at the nursery yesterday without paying any attention to what I was spending, I want you to understand that I may need to take on a part-time job over the summer to make up for it! But the minute I started putting tomatoes and herbs onto my cart, my mood lifted. Then I headed in to start getting the pretties and I spent an hour pulling together a color scheme. I can't wait to see it all come together and then to be able to read on the patio surrounded by beautiful plants. 

Somewhere in there, I need to crank out some book reviews. I am so far behind and finishing two books almost every week. Think the next few weeks' reviews will be not much more than bullet points, but I want to get them written before I forget my feelings about the books. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Jess Walter's So Far Gone and started Allen Levi's Theo of Golden. 

Watched: College baseball, softball and spring volleyball. Also, we've been watching Masterpiece PBS's The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Sam Claflin. It's so good and has me wondering if I should devote my summer reading to finally tackling that beast of a book. Have you ever read it? 

Read: Elyse Myer's That's A Great Question, I'd Love to Tell You and I started Amanda Peters' The Berry Pickers. 

Made: Not a whole lot this week. Between leftovers we ate on Monday, dinner out, and catch-as-catch-can meals worked around events, it wasn't a week for cooking. 

Enjoyed: Lunch with friends last Sunday afternoon, getting my hair done Wednesday, and the quarterly siblings dinner with the Big Guy's family on Friday night. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: On lots of planting. 

Thinking About: Politics. 

Feeling: Lighter. The astrology folks tell me that Scorpios are coming out of seven rough years and this weekend is the turning point. I've never been a believer but I know that past seven years have been extremely difficult. So if life starts to really pick up now, I'm going to have to rethink that position. 

Looking forward to: Getting my hands in the dirt. Can you tell I'm a bit obsessed with this gardening business? 

Question of the week: I finished that latest season of Bridgerton the other night and need something to watch on the evenings when BG is out. For some reason, I tend to watch lighter stuff on those nights, things I would never pick up in book form. Got any recommendations? 

Kin by Tayari Jones

Kin by Tayari Jones

368 pages 

Published /2026 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

My copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher’s Summary: 

Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.

A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction.

My Thoughts: 

The Atlantic reviewer says “…Jones gives the novel the…sense of inevitable tragedy that animates Edith Wharton’s books.” As a huge fan of Wharton’s work, that would drawn me to this book. But I already knew that about Jones, having read her 2018 novel, An American Marriage. That’s the mark of a good writer – I know I’m going to have my heart broken in the end, but I want to read the book anyway. 

Vernice and Annie are more than best friends, they are sisters, inseparable no matter what the physical distance between them. Both were raised by women who were forced to mother the girls and who were afraid to bond too closely with the them. Because of the way they each became motherless, and the they were raised afterward, they are two very different people who seek healing in very different ways. 

Annie escapes town, headed north to find the mother who abandoned her. Annie doesn’t see that the people she travels with and meets along the way as a family and can’t accept the love she finds, so consumed is she in trying to finding her mother. It’s an obsession that comes with a high cost. 

Vernice escapes through education and makes her way to college in Atlanta There she meets her first love and people who will open her eyes to the Civil Rights movement. When a well-to-do woman takes Vernice under her wing, though,Vernice is convinced that the way to succeed is by marrying, settling down, and doing the "right thing." The woman becomes the mother Vernice has been seeking and soon becomes her mother-in-law as well. 

When Annie finds herself in trouble,  it's Vernice she turns to, despite  and Vernice finds that taking care of Annie is more important to her than following the rules set by society. 

Jones is one of those rare authors that makes you feel like you're in the room with these women. You can feel the emotions of the characters and see them clearly; you can picture the rooms and the roads; you can feel the tension, the fear, the nuances of the characters. Here is a story of grief, sadness, obsession, family and love that, despite the sadness the overwhelmed me throughout the book, made it impossible to put this book down. 

The Usual Desire To Kill by Camilla Barnes

The Usual Desire to Kill by Camilla Barnes

256 pages

Published April 2026 by Scribner

Publisher’s Summary: 

Miranda’s parents live in a dilapidated house in rural France that they share with two llamas, eight ducks, five chickens, two cats, and a freezer full of decades-old food.

Miranda’s father is a retired professor of philosophy who never loses an argument. Miranda’s mother likes to bring conversation back to “the War,” although she was born after it ended. Married for fifty years, they are uncommonly set in their ways. Miranda plays the role of translator when she visits, communicating the desires or complaints of one parent to the other and then venting her frustration to her sister and her daughter. At the end of a visit, she reports “the usual desire to kill.”

This wry, propulsive story about an eccentric yet endearing family and the sibling rivalry, generational divides, and long-buried secrets that shape them, is a glorious debut novel from a seasoned playwright with immense empathy and a flair for dialogue.

My Thoughts:

I recently went to pick up library holds that had come available and was surprised to find this title among my books. I had no recollection of requesting it, no idea who might have recommended it, and no idea why I would have requested a book about killing. I was only a few pages into the book when I became even more confused. This certainly didn’t feel like a book that was headed down the path of becoming a murder mystery. So, I did something I almost never do – I looked at the front flap to get the book description. And then I proceeded to race through this book. 

This is the story of how two people who should never have been together maneuver thru a long marriage and the effects that has on their children. Barnes explores marriage, sibling rivalry, truths behind shifting memories, and family secrets as well as examining the decisions people make in life, the long-term effects of those decisions, and how well one truly knows the people they love. 

One reviewer called it "tragicomic" and I think that's the perfect description. Barnes' writing is often witty and I found myself chucking frequently. But there is a sadness throughout that builds throughout the book. Miranda's father suffers the aftereffects of WWII and they both suffer the aftereffects of depression that followed it in England. That poverty has turned both parents into hoarders of a sort, which is both sad but also humorous in Barnes' hands. But life has hardened them as well. Which makes visiting them hard on Miranda, who writes to her sister, after one visit, that she left with "the usual desire to kill." 

I believe, in retrospect, that this book came to my attention via The New York Times Book Review and that I immediately requested it from my library just to avoid having to take the time to record it into my TBR list. I must say, it’s not a half bad way to get yourself to read something you might otherwise have put off. That would have been a terrible shame in the case of The Usual Desire To Kill. 

Life: It Goes On - April 19

Happy Sunday! It's another chilly weekend here after a week with some very warm temps. I need to have the chilly days fall during the week and the warm days on the weekend! Although that would have tempted me to head to the nursery even sooner to start getting plants. This week, though, this week I'm going! The Big Guy is already resigned to the fact that the kitchen table may be covered with plants for a week or so while I wait for us to be closer to frost free. 

Struggling this week with energy, which is a good thing for my reading but a bad thing for everything that needs to be done around the house. I did end up working on taxes every night through Wednesday, battling through my dad's until the last minute. Strange to think that I won't have to do his any more, but tax time will be so much less stressful. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished The Guncle and started Jess Walter's So Far Gone. Next up I have Allen Levi's Theo of Golden.

Watched: The Voice, plenty of Nebraska softball and baseball, an episode of The Gentlemen, and the penultimate episode of season four of Bridgerton. I had really thought that I wouldn't watch season four, but desperate for something to watch one evening, when I had the television to myself and wanted something familiar, I started it. Of course, I had to finish it, which I'll do Wednesday when BG heads off to his weekly guys' night. 

Read: I finished Andrew Sean Greer's Less is Lost and I'm about halfway through Elise Meyer's That's A Good Question, I'd Love To Tell You. 

Made: Realized Monday that our food plans for the week started with meals that started with the letter "P" so I decided to see if we could go the whole week with main courses that started with "P." Pasta, potatoes baked, potatoes fried (we always bake and entire bag of potatoes at once), pad thai, and paninis. Last night I even had a pancake (sweet potato) when we went out to eat! 

Enjoyed: Dinner with old friends last night. Well, I should say we enjoyed the time with them, although the experience left something to be desired. Ever been to a restaurant that's essentially out of beer? 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: Continue to have some paperwork that needs to be done, then the weather will determine what I work on for decluttering. Forty Bags In Forty Days flew by without my even starting it, but I'd still like to do it on my own - just need to figure out the starting date. 

Thinking About: What I want to do with plants outside this season. I've got some new planters that will need different things and some old ones that need to be tossed, so it will be fun to shop this year. 

Feeling: Worried. My old cat has been feeling so good these past few weeks and we had become certain that the problems she'd faced had been resolved. But the past few days, she's been having trouble again and I'm sure a visit to the vet is in our near future so see if we can get her back on track. 

Looking forward to: Headed out the door in a few minutes to have lunch with friends, then next weekend is our siblings dinner (not this weekend has I had thought). 

Question of the week: Are you a gardener? If so, food plants, flowers, or both? We will plant tomatoes, as always, but are thinking about other veggies we can try this year. Will probably try some beans but not sure what else. 

The Correspondent

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Read by Maggi-Med Reed and a full cast

8 hours, 36 minutes

Published April 2025 by Crown Publishing Group

Publisher’s Summary: 

“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn't there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one's life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”

Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime.

Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters-to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.

Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has-a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.

My Thoughts: 

If by some miracle, you have not yet read this book, I cannot stress to you enough how important it is that you listen to it. I’m sure it’s wonderful in print but it is so enhanced by the audiobook version. Each of the people with whom Sybil has correspondence is read by a different person, bringing so much realism to the book, particularly because each of them does such a terrific job. Every letter here is read exactly in the way you would imagine the writer would be saying it in their head as they wrote – with humor, with sadness. 

I'm a huge fan of well done epistolary novels so I knew from the beginning that I would read this one; I just wondered what it was about the book that made so many people say it was the best book they read last year. What made it different? The answer is that this book isn't one sided, it isn't just the correspondence between two people. It is the full story of Sybil's final years, a woman who has always believed that writing letters was the best form of communication, who gradually accepted email as an acceptable form of communication. Through all of these communications, we are able to watch a woman in her seventies still grow and change. Sybil is able to mend and build relationships, to face her biases, and to seek forgiveness. Readers see a  highly intelligent woman who comes off as a bit crotchety and set in her ways, soften, allow herself to have fun, find love, and face the coming end of her life. 

Throughout, Sybil continues writing a letter that goes on for years. When the truth of who that letter is written to is revealed, it is heartbreaking and explains so much about why Sybil became the woman she became. 

Is it likely to be my favorite book of the year? I don't think so. I'd certainly recommend it, though and it may well make my top ten, certainly in audiobooks. I'd also highly recommend it for books clubs, touching as it does on so many themes. 

Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

The Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

512 pages

Published June 2024 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Publisher’s Summary: 

Same As It Ever Was showcases the consummate style, signature wit, and profound emotional intelligence that made The Most Fun We Ever Had one of the most beloved novels of the past decade. Featuring a memorably messy family and the multifaceted marriage at its heart, Lombardo’s debut was dubbed “the literary love child of Jonathan Franzen and Anne Tyler” (The Guardian) and hailed as “ambitious and brilliantly written” (Washington Post). In this remarkable follow-up—another elegant and tumultuous story in the tradition of Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, and Celeste Ng—Lombardo introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters, this time by way of her singularly complicated protagonist.

Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty seven, that she has a firm handle on things.

She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor’s edge.

Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life, —exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. 

My Thoughts: 

I’m just going to honest up front about this one. Same As It Ever Was was a tough read for me, both in the content and in actual act of reading it. At over 500 pages, it was going to take a while for me to get through, even if it had really gripped me. It did not. I felt like I was slogging my way through mud. 

There wasn’t a single character in this book that I didn’t find annoying in some way by the time I was finished with it. I often found myself skimming, feeling like things were just being rehashed, and felt like the book could easily have been 100 pages shorter and still conveyed the messages that Lombardo intended. Had it all ended in a way that I found satisfactory, it would have redeemed itself to some extent. It did not. While I appreciate a book that doesn’t put a bow on it and everyone lives happily ever after, I wasn’t entirely sure that any of these characters was going to be truly happy ever. 

But Ron Charles, of The Washington Post, said of this book: 

“Lombardo’s witty, sympathetic take on motherhood exudes the sharp scent of fermented apple juice and a full diaper… Lombardo has such a fine eye for the weft and warp of a family’s fabric. She understands the chemistry of that special epoxy of irritation and affection that keeps a marriage glued together. One finishes Same As It Ever Was with the satisfaction of knowing this complicated woman well — and the poignant disappointment of having to say goodbye.”

Was this merely a case of the wrong book at the wrong time for me? Possibly. But I don’t think so. I think, for me, this was simply the wrong book.