Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks

224 pages

Published February 2025 by Penguin Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz – just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy – collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at the beach. But all of this ended abruptly when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.

Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony’s death.

A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.

My Thoughts: 

""Is this the home of Tony Horowitz?"

   Yes. 

   "Who am I speaking to?"

   This is his wife. 

   That is exact. The rest is a blur.

   "Collapsed in the street...tried to resuscitate at the scene...brought to the hospital...couldn't revive him..."

   And, so, now he's in the OR. And, so, now we've admitted him for a procedure. And, so, now we're 

   keeping him for observation.

   So many things that logically should have followed.

   But she said none of these things. Instead, the illogical thing. 

   He's dead. 

   No."

How's that for packing a punch to open a book? 

I'd forgotten that this was a memoir when I started it. As I read these words, I was thinking to myself, "Wow, this is the way to make the death of a loved one sound real." Well, of course it was. Even so, I'm so impressed by Brooks' ability to make that moment, six years ago, still feel so very real and raw. 

Brooks writes about her own grief, about helping her sons and in-laws deal with their grief, about trying to understand how a person as healthy as Tony appeared to be could die so suddenly, about their lives together. She didn't make a saint of him. All of it brought Tony to life and made it even easier to understand why his loss was so difficult to bear. 

This book really resonated with me, for the storytelling, for the writing, and because I could so relate to it. No, I have not lost my husband. But I have faced the diagnosis of my husband's cancer and lived through figuring out how to tell my children, how to comfort them while also facing my own possible future, of having to manage the shock and sadness of others. I have dealt with the very sudden loss of my mother and all of the strategic decisions that had to be made for months afterward that put off of my own grief to an extent. I could understand the need to step away from it all to have time to allow myself to feel everything. 

Brooks did all of that while trying to finish the novel she was working on at the time of Tony's death, Horse. Because life moves forward, no matter how much we need it to stop for a little while. 

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

512 pages

Published September 2024 by Crown Publishing

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review 

Publisher's Summary: [SKIP THIS IF YOU WANT TO BE SURPRISED BY THIS BOOK]

If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.
 
Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future—age 103!—and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.
 
How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as “The Death Lady.”
 
Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.
 
A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.
 
If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?

My Thoughts: 

Oh gosh, I just told you not to read the synopsis and now I have to give you my thoughts without giving away anything! Ok, let's give it a shot: 

• First up, it's Liane Moriarty. That's all it took for me to know I wanted to read this book and I suspect many of you will be feeling the same. Even when I didn't feel like her writing was up to her best (Nine Perfect Strangers), she always gives readers interesting characters and plenty to think about. Here One Moment succeeds on both counts. 
• I was twenty pages into this one and already telling a friend NOT to read the synopsis because it's key in those first pages to go in without any preconceived notions, to be left wondering who this woman is and why she is, in fact, remarkable.

"Later, not a single person will recall seeing the lady board the flight at Hobart Airport.

Nothing about her appearance or demeanor raises a red flag or even an eyebrow.

She is not drunk or belligerent or famous.

She is not injured, like the bespectacled hipster with his arm scaffolded in white guaze so that one hand is permanently pressed to his heart, as if he's professing his love or honesty.

She is not frazzled, like the sweaty young mother trying to keep her grip on a slippery baby, a furious toddler, and far too much carry-on.

She is not frail, like the stopped elderly couple wearing multiple heavy layers as if they're off to join Captain Scott's Antarctica expedition."

• When we figure out why the woman is remarkable, we'll spend the rest of the book thinking we know what's going to happen, waiting for it to happen, and wondering how Moriarty will frame it so that it's not anticlimactic. Trust me when I tell you that she will. 
• I absolutely loved how Moriarty moves from the plane to focus on just a few characters, whose stories we'll alternate between...including that woman. In fact, she will be the person we'll get to know the best, the one we'll grow to care the most about. 

If you're a fan of Moriarty's, you wont' be disappointed by this one. If you've never read Moriarty before, you'll become a fan of the way she can help readers relate to and care about her characters. Is it her best? In my opinion, no; that honor still goes to Big Little Lies for me. But this one is right up there, if for no other reason than the way she made me care about one particular character. 

All The Broken Places by John Boyne

All The Broken Places by John Boyne

Read by Kristin Ahterton and Helen Lloyd 

12 hours 42 minutes

Published November 2022 by Penguin Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same well-to-do mansion block in London for decades. She lives a quiet, comfortable life, despite her deeply disturbing, dark past. She doesn’t talk about her escape from Nazi Germany at age 12. She doesn’t talk about the grim post-war years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn’t talk about her father, who was the commandant of one of the Reich’s most notorious extermination camps. 

Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can’t help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry’s beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel’s hard-won, self-contained existence. 

All The Broken Places moves back and forth in time between Gretel’s girlhood in Germany to present-day London as a woman whose life has been haunted by the past. Now, Gretel faces a similar crossroads to one she encountered long ago. Back then, she denied her own complicity, but now, faced with a chance to interrogate her guilt, grief and remorse, she can choose to save a young boy. If she does, she will be forced to reveal the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting. This time, she can make a different choice than before—whatever the cost to herself….

My Thoughts: 

I did that thing again, the thing where I don't finish listening to a book before my loan expires and then months later, when I finally get it back again, I can't remember a thing I listened to before and I have to go back aways into the book to refresh my memory. In no time, though, I was once again swept into this book and everything it made me feel. 

In 2006, Boyne wrote the bestseller The Boy In The Striped Pajamas. Readers of that book will recognize the main character in this book. Gretel Fernsby was 12 years old in that first book. Almost 80 years later, she is still living with the guilt of what she did then and what her father (and, by extension, her family) did and stood for. 

Here we are centered on present-day Gretel, but Boyne drops us back in to different times in Gretel's life. First to the time she and her mother spent in Paris, then to the time she spent in Australia, then to her early life with her late husband and son. In all of those places, Gretel is faced with the repercussions of what her father did, of her own feelings about it, of her implicate others who were guilty of heinous acts. But Gretel has been living for a long time with the past buried, in no small part because she keeps so much to herself. But young Henry has brought back the memory of what Gretel did to her brother and she finally sees a way to at least partially redeem herself. 

Like The German Wife, this book left me with mixed feelings about the main character. How much of what happened in those camps is she complicit in? What is her responsibility to those who died and those who suffered? Are we meant to feel sorry for her or should she be punished for what she did (or didn't) do? To be fair, Gretel was a young girl, not able to stop anything. But she could, in later years, have done more and it's hard to forgive her for that. Especially in light of the fact that she seems to feel much greater guilt for what happened to her brother than what happened to the millions of others who died. I wanted her to make things right in some way and here Boyne did not disappoint. 

I definitely recommend the audiobook (although I'm sure it's great in print, as well) and can imagine that this book would give book clubs a lot to talk about. 

The Dry - Jane Harper

The Dry by Jane Harper

Published January 2017 by Flatiron Books

Read by Stephan Shanahan 

10 hours

Publisher's Summary: 

After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke's steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn't tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.

Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there's more to Luke's death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets.

My Thoughts: 

People have been talking to me about Jane Harper's books for a while; but they aren't, as a general rule, the kind of books that I usually pick up. Still, someone (my aunt?) recommended this one to me as the place to start; and, as I'm finding myself more drawn lately to books out of my usual comfort zone, I decided to pick it up. 

This is one of those books that I'm sure I would have enjoyed had I read it in print. But I'm glad that I listened to it instead. Shanahan does a terrific job as reader, handling both male and female voices well, and adding a layer of tension to a book that is already tension filled. 

Falk has returned for Luke's funeral because of a note he received from Luke's father, which said that he knows that Luke and Aaron lied about what happened 20 years ago. What exactly does Luke's father want from Falk? Is he threatening to reveal something that will ruin Falk? Does he not buy the theory that his son killed his own family and himself because of financial worries caused by the extreme drought and need Falk to find the truth? Or is he afraid that the truth about what really happened twenty years ago explained what Luke did? Falk soon finds himself wonder the same thing. He knows that the alibi Luke provided him was a lie but wonders if Luke was actually trying to cover up something he did. 

As with most small towns, many of the people Falk knew twenty years ago still live in Kiewarra and they have not forgotten what happened to the young girl, Ellie, whose death Falk was accused of having caused. With few people he can trust, Falk must use all of his investigative skills to solve the death of his friend's family as quickly as he can. 

Harper keeps things moving along at a rapid pace and fills the book with plenty of leads that have those trying to solve the case (and readers) chasing off in entirely new directions. There's not a lot of time to delve deeply into the characters; except, perhaps, the biggest character in the book, the land. Harper does a terrific job of painting the isolation, the desperation, and the incredible dryness of the area. The setting is vivid. I raced through this book, finding any time I could to listen to a few more minutes. I'm certain that I'll be reading more of the Aaron Falk series. And I'll be looking forward to seeing the movie adaptation, starring Eric Bana, which is available on Amazon Prime. 

Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan

Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan

240 Pages

Published February 2014 by Random House Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary:

When Kelly Corrigan was in high school, her mother neatly summarized the family dynamic as “Your father’s the glitter but I’m the glue.” This meant nothing to Kelly, who left childhood sure that her mom—with her inviolable commandments and proud stoicism—would be nothing more than background chatter for the rest of Kelly’s life, which she was carefully orienting toward adventure. After college, armed with a backpack, her personal mission statement, and a wad of traveler’s checks, she took off for Australia to see things and do things and Become Interesting.

But it didn’t turn out the way she pictured it. In a matter of months, her savings shot, she had a choice: get a job or go home. That’s how Kelly met John Tanner, a newly widowed father of two looking for a live-in nanny. They chatted for an hour, discussed timing and pay, and a week later, Kelly moved in. And there, in that house in a suburb north of Sydney, 10,000 miles from the house where she was raised, her mother’s voice was suddenly everywhere, nudging and advising, cautioning and directing, escorting her through a terrain as foreign as any she had ever trekked. Every day she spent with the Tanner kids was a day spent reconsidering her relationship with her mother, turning it over in her hands like a shell, straining to hear whatever messages might be trapped in its spiral.

This is a book about the difference between travel and life experience, stepping out and stepping up, fathers and mothers. But mostly it’s about who you admire and why, and how that changes over time.

My Thoughts: 

Glitter and Glue kicked off The Omaha Bookworms 2023 reading, for two reasons. First, it fit our theme of You Learn Something New Every Month. Secondly, it's a book that's been on my Nook for several years and this gave me a push to read something I already owned. I assumed it would be a book that would give us plenty to talk about. I hadn't anticipated how much everyone would enjoy it, including me. Here's why: 

• Corrigan blends her life in the U.S., her time nannying in Australia and Willa Cather's My Antonia! to explore her relationship with her mother. I really enjoyed how she was able to blend the three together to form a cohesive memoir. Plus, I always give high marks when someone works in a book by a Nebraska author. 
• The title comes from something Corrigan's mother told Corrigan: "Your father's the glitter but I'm the glue." Which really got me thinking (and then asking my book club) which of my parents was which and who played which role in my marriage. 
• I became so emotionally attached to the people in this book, both the Tanners and the Corrigans; Corrigan did such a marvelous job of making me feel what the families felt. 
• So many passages that I've highlighted, that really spoke to me and to which I could relate. Some I'll share here. Some I'll save and do a Book Gems post one day. 

"The living mother-daughter relationship, you learn over and over again, is a constant choice between adaptation and acceptance." 

"...a good mother is required to somehow absorb all this ugliness and find a way to fall back in love with her child the next day."  

I so often said, particularly of my challenging bookends, that it was a good thing that they fell asleep at night. It allowed me to recharge and to go in and watch them sleep, so peaceful and sweet.  

"I crack open my book, thinking about my mother and the many moments of my childhood when she tucked herself away somewhere, enjoying what she called a party for one." 

It made me think of the times when I felt I had lost control of myself and gave myself a time out in my room. I should have been more like Corrigan's mother and done that a little more often; it's essential for a mother to take some time to care for herself. 

• This passage made me think of the times that my book club has spoken to authors and, when asked a question about their books, had them admit that they hadn't thought of the book in that way but agreed with the idea. 

"I remember a lecture from one of my lit classes about a theory called "Reader Response," which basically says: More often than not, it's the readers - not the writers - who determine what a book means. The idea is that readers don't come blank to books. Consciously and not, we bring all the biases that come with our nationality, gender, race, class, age. Then you layer onto that the status of our health, employment, relationships, not to mention our particular relationship to each book - who gave it to us, where we read it, what books we've already read."

This almost certainly accounts for much of the reason some people love a book while others hate it, why I know that sometimes I have read a book at the wrong time in my life, why I'm able to recommend a book to someone knowing they will enjoy it, even if I wasn't wow'd by it. This one I'm going to recommend to you not just because it's a book I think you might like (because all six of you reading this have your own backgrounds you're bringing to the book), but because it's a book that most women, especially mothers, will be able to relate to and take something from. 

Throwback Thursday: Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
Published September 2021 by Holt, Henry and Company, Inc.
480 pages
Source: check out from my local library

Publisher's Summary: The Delaney family love one another dearly—it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other . . .

If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father?

This is the dilemma facing the four grown Delaney siblings.

The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?

The four Delaney children—Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke—were tennis stars in their own right, yet as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. But that’s okay, now that they’re all successful grown-ups and there is the wonderful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon.
One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that was all she wanted. 

Later, when Joy goes missing, and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent, two are not so sure—but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their biggest match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light. 

My Thoughts: 

Because my book club just read this book, I thought I pull this review back out and remind myself what I thought of it. I can definitely tell you that it made for a great discussion!

Publisher's Weekly calls this book a psychological thriller and I suppose it is that. Which actually comes as something of a surprise to me, even though Moriarty keeps readers in suspense as to what happened to Joy Delaney. Even though she gradually reveals truths about the Delaneys and their home that begin to point to nefarious activity and an obvious suspect. 

 
Having read Moriarty before, though, I just knew that the obvious suspect wasn't the suspect, even as an arrest was about to be made. Because, having read Moriarty before, I've come to see a pattern in her books and (I suppose this is true of any even remotely decent thriller) the obvious suspect won't be guilty; but the guilty party will definitely be someone who's been around all along. Moriarty will skewer suburban life. Check. She'll load her book with gossip as a means of delivering the truth. Check. She'll give us perfectly ordinary families who aren't so perfect after all. Check. All of those elements are in this book. 

 
This book as an extra element - that stranger who shows up on the Delaneys' doorstep and, in so doing, begins to unravel the truths about the Delaneys and their relationships. 

 
Those truths? Those I really enjoyed, the way small cracks began to appear in the facade of a happy family. The way parental expectations can both shape and undo a child. The way those same expectations can undo a marriage. I enjoyed seeing these sibling struggle with how to or whether to support a father who they believe has, maybe, killed their mother. 

 
But that stranger? I have very mixed feelings about that stranger and how she came to ensconce herself in Stan's and Joy's home and their lives. Moriarty's written nine books now and been successful enough that I can't help but wonder if she's not allowed more leniency with the final product than a newer writer might be given. Would an editor have advised a less successful writer to cut back on the stranger's story? It's just a little...too much. At least it was for me.

 
Still, I raced through this book once I got into it. There were plenty of surprises. I liked the way Moriarty used neighbors and friends and the people who provide services for the Delaneys to drop snippets of gossip; but are those snippets the truth or merely a sliver of the full picture? And as much as I thought there was too much of that stranger, I did like that she was multi-dimensional. Oh yeah, the tennis; I liked the tennis. Even though I'm not a tennis player or a particular fan of the sport I liked the way Moriarty used it to develop her characters and her story. 

 
Fan of Moriarty's won't be disappointed. I wasn't. I just think it could have been just that tiny bit better.

The Cartographer's Secret by Tea Cooper

The Cartographer's Secret by Tea Cooper

400 Pages

Published November 2021

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through TLC Book Tours, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:

The Hunter Valley, 1880—Evie Ludgrove loves to chart the landscape around her home—hardly surprising since she grew up in the shadow of her father’s obsession with the great Australian explorer Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt. So when an advertisement appears in The Bulletin magazine offering a thousand-pound reward for proof of where Leichhardt met his fate, Evie is determined to use her father’s papers to unravel the secret. But when Evie sets out to prove her theory, she vanishes without a trace, leaving behind a mystery that haunts her family for thirty years. 

1911—Letitia Rawlings arrives at the family estate in her Ford Model T to inform her great-aunt Olivia of a loss in their family. But Letitia is also escaping her own problems—her brother’s sudden death, her mother’s scheming, and her dissatisfaction with the life planned out for her. So when Letitia discovers a beautifully illustrated map that might hold a clue to the fate of her missing aunt, Evie Ludgrove, she sets out to discover the truth. But all is not as it seems, and Letitia begins to realize that solving the mystery of her family’s past could offer as much peril as redemption.

My Thoughts: 

Earlier this year I read and reviewed Cooper's The Girl In The Painting and enjoyed it so much that I didn't need to know anything more about this one than the author's name to know that I would read and review it. 

I've told you before that I'm not very good about reading Afterwards and Author's Notes when I've finished a book but recently I've been finding that I'm gaining a greater appreciation for the story by doing so. Cooper reveals that she's always had a interest in maps, especially after she found out that many early cartographers were women. Liking to set her books in Australia led her to the true story of Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt. And thus began her story of a how a young woman, interested in mapmaking, resolves to find the truth between Leichhardt's disappearance. 

Like The Girl In The Painting, Cooper sets her story primarily in the Australian outback and the setting comes alive in her hands. Even before I looked up Yellow Rock to see if there was such a place, I pictured it very much as it's seen here. It's not the only similarity these books have - both have mysteries to be solved, young women who won't be stopped by the conventions of the day, and family at the core of the story. It is the story of love, grief, loss, guilt, secrets, and the things that bind a family together and those that tear a family apart. It's also the story of three women who defy expectations to live their lives in ways that they choose. 

Unlike most dual story lines set in different time periods, there is a direct link between the two stories and not a lot of time between them. It feels much more natural that these stories should tie together then the usual dual storylines and I find that much more enjoyable in a book than when a modern day storyline is used simply as a means to tell an historical story from a modern perspective. 

My only quibbles with the book were that sometimes it could feel repetitive, occasionally it got a bit unnecessarily confusing, and there is a romance that I didn't feel was necessary. Otherwise, it was a book that pulled me through, made me care about the characters, and feel like I was immersed in the setting. 

Thanks to the ladies of TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. 

About the Author Tea Cooper is an established Australian author of historical fiction. In a past life she was a teacher, a journalist, and a farmer. These days she haunts museums and indulges her passion for storytelling. She is the winner of two Daphne du Maurier Awards and the bestselling author of several novels, including The Horse Thief, The Cedar Cutter, The Currency Lass, and The Naturalist’s Daughter.

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Published September 2021 by Holt, Henry and Company, Inc.

480 pages

Source: check out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

The Delaney family love one another dearly—it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other . . .

If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father?

This is the dilemma facing the four grown Delaney siblings.

The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?

The four Delaney children—Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke—were tennis stars in their own right, yet as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. But that’s okay, now that they’re all successful grown-ups and there is the wonderful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon.

One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that was all she wanted.

Later, when Joy goes missing, and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent, two are not so sure—but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their biggest match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.

My Thoughts:

Publisher's Weekly calls this book a psychological thriller and I suppose it is. Which actually comes as something of a surprise to me, even though Moriarty keeps readers in suspense as to what happened to Joy Delaney. Even though she gradually reveals truths about the Delaneys and their home that begin to point to nefarious activity and an obvious suspect. 

Having read Moriarty before, though, I just knew that the obvious suspect wasn't the suspect, even as an arrest was about to be made. Because having read Moriarty before, I've come to see a pattern in her books and (I suppose this is true of any even remotely decent thriller) the obvious suspect won't be guilty but the guilty party will definitely be someone who's been around all along. Moriarty will skewer suburban life. Check. She'll load her book with gossip as a means of delivering the truth. Check. She'll give us perfectly ordinary families who aren't so perfect after all. Check. All of those elements are in this book. 

This book as an extra element - that stranger who shows up on the Delaneys' doorstep and, in so doing, begins to unravel the truths about the Delaneys and their relationships. 

Those truths? Those I really enjoyed, the way small cracks began to appear in the facade of a happy family. The way parental expectations can both shape and undo a child. The way those same expectations can undo a marriage. I enjoyed seeing these sibling struggle with how to or whether to support a father who they believe has, maybe, killed their mother. 

But that stranger? I have very mixed feelings about that stranger and how she came to ensconce herself in Stan's and Joy's home and their lives. Moriarty's written nine books now and been successful enough that I can't help but wonder if she's not allowed more leniency with the final product than a newer writer might be given. Would an editor advised a less successful writer to cut back on the stranger's story? It's just a little...too much. 

Still, I raced through this book once I got into it. There were plenty of surprises, I liked the way Moriarty used neighbors and friends and the people who provide services for the Delaneys to drop snippets of gossip; but are those snippets the truth or merely a sliver of the full picture? And as much as I thought there was too much of that stranger, I did like that she was multi-dimensional. Oh yeah, the tennis; I liked the tennis. Even though I'm not a tennis player or a particular fan of the sport I liked the way Moriarty used it to develop her characters and her story. 

Fan of Moriarty's won't be disappointed. I wasn't. I just think it could have been just that much better. 

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

Read by Caroline Lee

Published July 2016 by Flatiron Books

Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

Six responsible adults. Three cute kids. One small dog. It’s just a normal weekend. What could possibly go wrong?

In Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty turns her unique, razor-sharp eye towards three seemingly happy families.

Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit busy, life: they have two little girls, Sam has just started a new dream job, and Clementine, a cellist, is busy preparing for the audition of a lifetime. If there’s anything they can count on, it’s each other.

Clementine and Erika are each other’s oldest friends. A single look between them can convey an entire conversation. But theirs is a complicated relationship, so when Erika mentions a last-minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate. Having Tiffany and Vid’s larger-than-life personalities there will be a welcome respite.

Two months later, it won’t stop raining, and Clementine and Sam can’t stop asking themselves the question: What if we hadn’t gone?

My Thoughts:

Finally! I have had this book on my Nook almost since it came out. I may even have a physical copy somewhere (one day I'll really and truly get my books organized!). This is the second time I've check the audiobook out. Some months ago I started the audiobook,  had to return it before I finished and figured I'd finish it on my Nook. But I didn't even pick up my Nook. It just wasn't calling to me, not the way Moriarty's other books have done. When I needed an audiobook, though, I decided to give it another chance. 

Even on its second chance, it felt like I was having to force myself to listen to it. I didn't care much for either Clementine or Erika and I wasn't buying into their friendship. But this is one of those books that makes it almost impossible for me to give up on a book. Throughout the book, Moriary moves back and forth between the peeks into the women's pasts, the present and The Day of The Picnic. When we finally got to what happened the day of the picnic, everything changed for me. The fallout from what happened and the gradual revealing of the truth of what happened pulled me into Clementine's and Erika's stories. 

Moriarty's strength is in telling stories that combine humor with the minutiae of life while tackling heavy themes. Here she explores marriage, parenting, friendship as well as hoarding, anxiety, infertility, addiction, secrets, troubled pasts, and lies. As always, Moriarty shines when examining marriages - the three couples here all have different marriages but each marriage contains the everyday things that irritate each partner, life complications and secrets. 

Unfortunately, even as much as I ended up enjoying the book, the relationship between Clementine and Erika was not as strong as strong as Moriarty usually is at friendships and that kept me from liking this book as much as I did The Husband's Secret and Big Little Lies. I do think this would make, as all of Moriarty's books would, a good choice for a book club. 

The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper

The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper

Published March 2021 by Thomas Nelson 

Source: courtesy of the publisher, through TLC Book Tours, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:

Australia, 1906 Orphan Jane Piper is nine years old when philanthropist siblings Michael and Elizabeth Quinn take her into their home to further her schooling. The Quinns are no strangers to hardship— having arrived in Australia as penniless immigrants, they now care for others as lost as they once were. 

Despite Jane’s mysterious past, her remarkable aptitude for mathematics takes her far over the next seven years, and her relationship with Elizabeth and Michael flourishes as she plays an increasingly prominent part in their business. 

But when Elizabeth reacts in terror to an exhibition at the local gallery, Jane realizes no one knows Elizabeth after all—not even Elizabeth herself. As the past and the present converge and Elizabeth’s grasp on reality loosens, Jane sets out to unravel Elizabeth’s story before it is too late. 

From the gritty reality of the Australian goldfields to the grand institutions of Sydney, this compelling novel takes us on a mystery across continents and decades as both women finally discover a place to call home.

My Thoughts:

I read one word when I received the pitch for this book...Australia. I've told you before that we have several Australian families we count as friends. Because of them, I have a special fondness for that country. Book written by Australian authors, especially historical fiction books, aren't that easy to find so I was excited to have a chance to read one. 

This is a story of immigration to Australia and how those immigrants helped build the country...how they worked together and fought each other and became Australians. Cooper clearly sets the her story in Australia, describing the landscape and referencing landmarks; I always have an extra appreciation for a book that can do that, especially when I am so hoping for it. She's also used a number of historical events to place her story in a time and place. 

Cooper has crafted a book with multiple time and story lines. If you've been reading this blog long, you'll know that I often have problems with that but Cooper makes it work because all of the time lines revolve around the same core story line. Running throughout the timelines is the thread of a mystery but solving the mystery isn't the point of the book. Cooper includes the themes of prejudice, love, and honesty. At it's heart, thought, this is a book about the bonds of family and what makes a family. I loved that Cooper's leading ladies were intelligent, educated, and strong. 

This was just the book I needed right now, even though I couldn't help but keep thinking of my mom as I read it because I know she would have really enjoyed it. I was completely caught up in the story and couldn't put the book down. 

Thanks to the ladies from TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. For other opinions about the book, check out the full tour here.

About Tea Cooper:

Tea Cooper is an Australian author of historical and contemporary fiction. In a past life she was a teacher, a journalist and a farmer. These days she haunts museums and indulges her passion for storytelling.

Connect with Tea

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The Light Between Oceans - A Movie Review...of sorts

I don't do movie reviews here. I don't review them any where. Wait...that's starting to sound like a Dr. Seuss book. See, that's why I don't review movies. I have an even harder time putting into words why I liked a movie than I do why I liked a book.

I thought I'd turn to some reviews written by actual paid film reviewers to see if they could help me explain it. The problem is they had wildly differing opinions. David Edelstein, whom I generally agree with, found very little about the movie to like. What? How dare he?

Alright, alright. The film has some problems and I did have a couple of quibbles. But we'll get to those later.

First, let's get to what I loved about the film, David Edelstein be damned. 

Edelstein complained that the movie was both melodramatic and psychodramatic. I beg to differ. But then I've read the book and, I'd wager to say, he has not. It's an incredibly sad novel with some deep moral questions. It should pull at your heart. Perhaps women, particularly mothers and those who have miscarried or lost a child, will understand the conflict better than most men. But surely most men who have truly loved a woman will also be able to relate to the lengths a man might go to for the woman he loves.

The movie does a wonderful job of telling the story as Stedman wrote it. There are places, as there are in all book-to-movie adaptations, where those who have read the book just "get" it better than those who have not. For example, if you haven't read the book, you don't understand quite how desperate a young girl was to get away from a home that was filled with grief by the loss of both of her brothers in the war and her willingness to marry a man she hardly knew.

It is a beautifully filmed movie and the director does a fantastic job of conveying the isolation Tom and Isabel Sherbourne felt on the lighthouse island but also the beauty of being, literally, between oceans. The relentless pounding of the waves in the beginning sounds overwhelming but soon begins to feel soothing.

And the acting. Oh, my, the acting. I knew Michael Fassbender and Rachel Weisz would give terrific performances. I have never seen either of these Academy award winners give a bad performance (okay, may Weisz wasn't at her peak in The Mummy movies - but who could blame her). I have not yet seen "The Danish Girl," for which Alicia Vikander won an Academy award, so I was unfamiliar with her skills. She utterly disappears into Isabel; her emotional range was incredible. My heart broke for her; tears streamed down my face during more than one scene. 

Before I even went into the theater, I had a problem with Rachel Weisz playing the role of Hannah Roennfeldt. While she looks terrific for 46 years old, she's too old for the role.

Another problem I had with the movie also had to do with Weisz's costuming. The bulk of her action occurs in 1927 but her costumes (for the most part) and hair style don't feel right for that time period. Because the costumer continued to put Vikander in the same clothes throughout the movie, the two women appeared to be from entirely different eras. Maybe it was to play up the difference between the two but that's not the way it came off for me.

I couldn't remember the ending of the book but the ending of the movie didn't feel right to me. Turns out, it was mostly right after I looked it up. I suppose I wanted there to be some solution that didn't break Tom's and Isabel's hearts and the director didn't give it to me any more than Stedman had. And there were a couple filming spots right at the end that I didn't like.

All little things that momentarily put me off. But, as I said, these are small quibbles. Because, truly, the movie gave me exactly what I expected and, more importantly, exactly what I wanted. Those paid reviewers may want more from a movie but this girl is very happy with that outcome.