Cheer Up, Mr. Widdicombe by Evan James
Atria Books: 3/26/19
eBook review copy; 288 pages
ISBN-13: 9781501199615
Cheer Up, Mr. Widdicombe by Evan James is a highly recommended satirical comedy.
Frank Widdicombe is suffering from depression, but only according to
his wife, Carol, who also contemplates other things Frank may be
suffering from. The Widdicombes are a wealthy family summering at their
island home, Willowbrook
Manor, on Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound. Carol is planning a
garden, created and cared for by Marvelous Matthews. Self-help author
Gracie Sloane is going to spend the summer with them. Their son, a
painter, has just returned with a broken heart from Italy. The
Widdicombe's personal assistant Michelle is enamored of screenwriter
Bradford, who returns her ardor. There are employees and guests and
events planned for the summer that will hopefully cheer up Frank out of
his supposed depression.
This comedy will strongly remind you of a hilarious
and sophisticated screwball comedy in films (for example: Bringing
Up Baby or His Girl Friday or Some Like it Hot), only set in the
present day. The narrative features the same absurd dialogue, irreverent
wit, and repartee between characters as found in these old comedic
films. The novel "outlines
a summer with a family that’s so neurotic they’re almost normal."
In order to appreciate Cheer Up, Mr. Widdicombe, readers will
need to be prepared for the comedic banter and actions of all the
characters in this debut novel that does not take itself or its
characters too seriously. These characters are all characterized by
outlandish and absurd behaviors and dialogues. They are laughably
dysfunctional, prone to follow whatever New Age thought process that
catches their eye. Don't take this novel too seriously. You need to
laugh at all of it in order to appreciate it. Now, at times it does
wander close to being a bit too over-the-top, but on the other hand,
that does make it a fun read. This is a good choice for a summer
vacation read.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Atria Books.
Run Away by Harlan Coben
Grand Central Publishing: 3/19/19
eBook review copy; 384 pages
ISBN-13:
9781538748466
Run Away by Harlan Coben is a compelling, very highly
recommended domestic thriller and intricate mystery. This one is a
fast-moving page-turner!
Financial adviser Simon Greene and his pediatrician wife Ingrid have three children, Paige, Sam, and Anya, and
from outward appearances they live a comfortable life. The problem is
that they haven't seen their drug addicted daughter, Paige, ever since
she dropped out of college and disappeared with her loser junkie/dealer
boyfriend
Aaron Corval. When Simon is told a friend saw an emaciated Paige playing
her guitar and pan handling in Central Park, he keeps an eye out for
her, finds out when she plays there, and approaches her after her "set."
She ran away from him and Simon follows. When he tries to stop Paige,
she starts yelling. Aaron appears, and steps in to stop him, but Simon
punches him out, trying to follow Paige. By-standers intervened and
Simon is arrested. The whole event was recorded on phones and spun as
the evil rich guy beating up a poor homeless guy.
Simon deals with all the attention and legal questions, coming out
with no charges, when another cop shows up at his office months later
with a few questions. Aaron has been murdered and Paige is nowhere to be
found. This sets Aaron and Ingrid on a quest to find Paige and keep her
safe from whoever killed Aaron. Simon's search leads him to some
surprising, dark and threatening places and contacting people he
normally wouldn't. Soon his search for Paige is even more complicated,
precarious, and dangerous than even Simon realizes.
Run Away has it all. The writing is pitch-perfect; the plot is
complicated, intricate, and fast-moving; the characters are interesting
and well-developed. The pages will fly by in this
lightening-paced-stay-up-until-you-finish-it thriller. (And I drank an
extra-large cup of coffee after work to do just that.) As the twisty
mystery unfolds in Simon's search and becomes increasingly complex, it
leads to unexpected answers and more investigation. I was surprised at
the satisfying final ending. Coben's writing is excellent as is his plot
and pacing. I really enjoyed this whole novel right up to the final
denouement.
All the characters are well developed and realistic. Simon is a
wonderful character - a loving, caring father who would do anything to
try to save his daughter. Simon finds himself in the midst of something
that is more treacherous than he even knows, but he perseveres, even
when circumstances mean he needs some extra encouragement to do so, in
order to reach the final answers.
Run Away is an exceptional taut thriller and the perfect choice for escapism!
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Grand Central Publishing.
The Study of Animal Languages by Lindsay Stern
Penguin
Random House: 2/19/19
eBook review copy; 240 pages
ISBN-13: 9780525557432
The Study of Animal Languages by Lindsay Stern is a recommended novel about a marriage in crisis due to a lack of communication.
Prue, a professor of in the emerging field of biolinguistics, the
study of
the biology and evolution of language, is delivering the college's
annual lecture in the Life Sciences about birdsong. Her husband, Ivan, a
philosophy professor of epistemology at the same college in Rhode
Island, has gone to Vermont to pick up her father, Frank, who is
determined to attend her lecture. She doesn't want him there as his
bipolar disorder can make him and his actions unstable and
unpredictable. Ivan is driving Frank to hear the lecture and he is
supposed to make sure Frank takes his meds.
Ivan and Prue are very different personalities but so far have made
their marriage work, although Ivan now feels a distance between them.
The expectation is that this lecture and weekend will represents an
important step in her career since Prue's lecture on birdsong will
likely result in tenure for her. Both the lecture and the weekend don't
go as planned at all. Not only is Frank not taking his meds and causes
several problems, Prue's lecture is not at all what Ivan and the college
expected. Adding to the drama is Ivan's suspicions that Prue is
interested in a visiting professor.
The Study of Animal Languages follows Ivan and one crisis,
misunderstanding, and incident after another. Communication is lacking
between everyone in this novel. This is really a chronicle of one
disastrous weekend and the breakdown of a couple's marriage. There
really is no right or wronged party. Both Ivan and Prue are making
errors, although the focus in the novel is about Ivan's mistakes and
misreading of situations. For example, Ivan is placed in charge of
medicating Frank, while Prue is never proactive, following-up on this
important detail until the disastrous end results. Prue also lets Ivan
know in front of colleagues that she hasn't turned down a fellowship
that he thought she had. Both of these people are disastrous at
communication.
The prose is very descriptive - erudite and dense at times - but also insightful. "The more incisive her contributions, she once
remarked, in a rare display of cynicism, the more likely they were to
elicit from her male interlocutor a bashful deference, disguised as
respect." The relationship between Ivan and
Prue, as well as with the other characters, is a series of one misstep
after another. Stern does capture the limitations of language and how we
misunderstand each other and ourselves in numerous ways every day.
As a character, Ivan is well-developed, as is Frank
to some extent, but Prue, remains a bit of a cipher with limited
character development. It might have helped the novel out to either know
Prue better or provide Ivan with a more complete background. I just
kept thinking that the novel, although good, was missing a key piece, an
important piece of the puzzle that needed to be communicated. Perhaps
that is intended in this novel about limitations of interpersonal
communication, but it still felt like it missed the mark.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Penguin
Random House.
The Liar's Child by Carla Buckley
Penguin Random House:
3/12/19
eBook review copy; 288 pages
ISBN-13: 9781101887127
The Liar's Child by Carla Buckley is a highly recommended
novel of suspense.
Set mainly at the dilapidated Paradise apartment complex on North
Carolina’s Outer Banks, The Liar's Child follows a handful
of characters: Whit, Sara, Hank, and Cassie. Sara Lennox is
in the witness protection program, awaiting her testimony in an
upcoming trial. Her FBI handlers have set her up in an apartment
at the Paradise and she's got a cleaning job. Sara has noticed the
children who live next door, rebellious twelve-year-old Cassie and
needy five-year-old Boon, and the social worker who has been by
asking her what she knows about the family. Boon is taken by Sara
and finds her fascinating. Sara knows there is more going on after their father, Whit tells her about
his wife leaving them.
When a hurricane approaches, Sara is supposed to be evacuated by her
handlers, but she has other, secret plans put into place that she
is going
to carry out now. As she is leaving the Paradise, she looks up to
see Cassie and Boon, out on their deck, apparently left alone by Whit.
She loads them into her car at the last minute to get them off the
island to somewhere safe too. Now Sara has the two children under her
care and needs to find some place to leave them so she can carry out her
own plans.
Buckley uses an omniscient narrator to tell the story of these
damaged individuals - and they are all very damaged, hurting, troubled,
and have secrets. All of the characters, are flawed and well-drawn and
their misdeeds and troubles are slowly revealed, leaked out bit by bit,
as the story unfolds. They all keep things to themselves, even Cassie and Boon.
It is nice to see that Cassie and Boon are portrayed as characters
representative of their ages. Sara is a complex woman, with a life of
secrets, and she is clearly unfamiliar with children. Whit is stressed
out and doing the best he can. Hank's role in this drama won't be known
until much later in the narrative.
In this well-written novel, the approaching hurricane adds an element
of danger and increases the sense of urgency, but the story is found in
the characters and their interactions. While there are surprising
twists, the real plot is in the interaction of these people and the role
of fate in their actions. Pay attention to the brief descriptions of
objects found randomly between chapters as their importance will become
clear later.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House.
Fall Back Down When I Die by Joe Wilkins
Little, Brown and Company: 3/12/19
eBook review copy; 256 pages
ISBN-13: 9780316475358
Fall Back Down When I Die by Joe Wilkins is a highly recommended politically laden drama set in Montana.
Wendell Newman, 24, is a ranch hand in Eastern Montana who is
seriously in debt after his mother's death. He owes back taxes on the
land he inherited and is paying off his mother's medical bills. When a
social worker shows up, Wendell learns he is the only relative of
seven-year-old
Rowdy Burns, who is the son of Wendell's
incarcerated cousin. Rowdy, who is mute and likely on the autism
spectrum, moves in with Wendell and the two form a strong bond.
There is trouble brewing in Montana, between the
cowboys and ranchers of the old West and the environmentalists,
with the first legal wolf hunt, and increasing regulations being
enforced on BLM land, and increasing state involvement with the rural
families. As much as Wendell wants to stay out of it, he is a part of it
simply because his father, Verl, took a stand years earlier and killed a
man. Then Verl went into hiding and on the run, leaving his family
behind.
The story unfolds between the point-of-view of three characters and
chapters alternate between the voices of Verl, Wendell, and Gillian. The
novel opens with the first person account of Verl, on the run and
evading the law in the Big Dry mountains. His chapters consist of what
he is writing to his son in one of Wendell's notebooks that he grabbed
when leaving. Wendell and Gillian's narratives are told in third person
accounts. Gillian is an assistant principal and counselor, who wants to
help but also allows her own judgmental opinions of "rural stupidity" to
color her actions. It was her husband, Kevin, that Verl killed years
earlier. At the end of the novel two other voices are heard from.
The writing is beautifully descriptive and poetic as it carefully and
skillfully captures the setting and the characters. The characters are
all well developed and precisely depicted as individuals with their own
beliefs and feelings. The novel is slow-paced at the beginning, taking
time to describe the land and people as the story leads, inevitably to
the haunting and heart-breaking climax.
All the characters are survivors and suffering from emotional damaged
in some way. Wendell and Rowdy are wonderful characters and immediately
captured my heart. Gillian, I must admit, caused conflicting emotions.
She annoyed me since she just seemed to be so opinionated and
judgemental about the people she was supposed to be helping, but I
alternately had compassion for her and her own struggles.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Little, Brown and Company.
And Then You Were Gone by R. J. Jacobs
Crooked Lane Books: 3/13/19
eBook review copy; 288 pages
ISBN-13: 9781683319597
And Then You Were Gone by R. J. Jacobs is a highly recommended novel of mystery and suspense.
Emily Firestone is taking a weekend sailing trip with her boyfriend
Paolo. Emily has her bi-polar disorder under control and, although she's
panicked over being out on the boat in the lake because she can't swim,
she feels like she can keep her panic at bay. Paolo is a strong swimmer
and an experienced sailor. He has assured her she will be safe and they
will have a lovely weekend. After dinner and drinks on the boat the
night before, Emily awakens the next morning on the boat, Paolo is gone,
she has a horrible headache, and the boat is drifting around the lake.
Emily manages to get back to shore, report Paolo as missing. What could
have happened to him?
When evidence begins to suggest that something more sinister is
afoot and Paolo's disappearance may be due to foul play, Emily begins to
forget her meds and is moving into a manic state - or is she just
naturally concerned? The more she discovers, the more erratic her
behavior becomes. The more erratic she becomes, the less she sleeps.
Soon she is high on the police's list of suspects.
Emily is an unreliable narrator and trusting what she thinks she
knows and believes can be a struggle at times because you don't know
what her state of mind is - especially since she mentions frequently as
the novel progresses that she's forgot her meds, isn't eating, and she's
not sleeping. All of these factors make her incredibly unreliable and
untrustworthy as a protagonist. Adding to the mix are other characters
who either begin to doubt Emily or are suspicious themselves.
While the plot will hold your interest and moves quickly, the
narrative flow in this novel can be a bit bumpy at times. Part of this
is due to Emily's state, and part to an inconsistency in the narrative.
Events do start to collate into some semblance of a timeline, but
questions still remain about why Emily is allowed so much freedom to
move about considering she's a suspect. If you set aside any little
niggling questions about certain details (which could have been handled
in final editing) this is an enjoyable mystery with an exciting climax.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of Crooked Lane Books.
Cemetery Road by Greg Iles
HarperCollins: 3/5/19
eBook review copy; 608 pages
ISBN-13:
9780062824615
Cemetery Road by Greg Iles is a compelling, very highly
recommended Southern novel of suspense and one of the best novels I've
read this year.
"I never meant to kill my brother. I never set out to hate my father. I
never dreamed I would bury my own son. Nor could I have imagined that I
would betray the childhood friend who saved my life, or win a Pulitzer
Prize for telling a lie. All these things I have done, yet most people I
know would call me an honorable man." opening
Marshall McEwan has returned to his hometown of Bienville,
Mississippi, because his father is dying. Marshall swore he'd never
return when he left at eighteen, but his mother needs his help. His
father is terminally ill, and the 150-year-old family owned newspaper, The Watchman,
is struggling. He also knows that his first love, Jet, who is married
to his best friend, Paul, will be in Bienville. Marshall begins his
story when
Buck McKibben,
the scoutmaster who was a surrogate father to him after his father ignored him, is murdered.
But Marshall, who is an accomplished investigative journalist, begins
to look into the murder and the role that the Poker Club could have
played in it. The Poker Club is a group of wealthy good old boy patriarchs who rule the town and control it behind the scenes. They have been running the town as long as The Watchman has been around. Now they have managed to land a deal for a
billion-dollar Chinese paper mill to come to town and start an economic
upturn for the town. It seems that Buck's death may have been tied to a
discovery that would stop that from happening.
"To understand this story, you must swim between two times like a person
moving from wakefulness to sleep and then back again." The story
requires the disclosure of background information from years ago that
affects the present day machinations. The narrative is a tangled tale
that includes the death of brothers and sons, friendship, first loves,
war, dysfunctional families, secrets, betrayals, corruption, and the
power of wealth.
Iles has penned another excellent, engrossing, spellbinding novel
that will seize your attention, induce many diverse emotions, and not
let up until the ending. I was completely immersed in the narrative from
start to finish and the pages flew by as I compulsively read "just one
more chapter." This is a long book, but it doesn't feel overly long. The
plot is intricate and complicated on several different levels. The
setting is well-developed and the characters are fully realized. You may
find yourself talking back to Marshall, telling him to use his brain,
as he makes some decisions that you (and he) know are mistakes.
The quality of the writing, though, is what sets Iles apart and makes
this exceptional novel one of the best I have read this year. It has
been awhile since I simply had to save quotes from a novel, and I have
pages full of them from Cemetery Road. For those paying attention, there is a plethora of wisdom and universal truths found in Iles writing.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
I'm sharing a few of the quotes I saved even though I had a review copy and not a final edition.
"Many a man or woman has awakened from a months-long oxytocin high
and realized that they’ve put their spouse, their children, or even
their life at risk in a blind quest to regain a purity and intensity of
experience allowed only to the young."
"Whatever the trigger of our passion, we cross a line that we once
believed inviolate, and by so doing throw the world out of balance in
such a way that it must eventually right itself, regardless of human
casualties. Ironically, our passion blinds us to our true motives. Often
we perceive our personal world as out of balance and seize on the
notion that another person will somehow right the ship, restoring the
“happiness” we crave. The mind-altering ecstasy of sexual union further
distorts our perception, making it infinitely harder to navigate the
maze we have created for ourselves. This self-induced blindness pushes
us to take insane risks."
“Maybe I shouldn’t give you advice. But I’ll say this: if your dad
doesn’t come around, it’s because he doesn’t want to. That’s got nothing
to do with you. He’s missing something in his character. Divorce is one
thing, leaving a wife. But a man who leaves his children is something
else. I’ve got no respect for a man who does that. A father who leaves
his children does damage that can never be repaired. That’s why you’re
hurting now.”
"And the horror is this: when your wife or husband truly gives
themselves to another person, they haven’t done it to hurt you. In fact,
they’ve probably taken great care to avoid hurting you. No, the
unspeakable truth is that you no longer matter to them. Except as the
mother or father of their children, you do not exist. That is why people
refuse to see. To do so, they’d have to crack the door on limitless
darkness in which they have come to mean nothing to the person who knows
them best in the world. They must face, probably for the first time,
being utterly alone. And that way lies madness."
“We’re all on Cemetery Road,” he says, turning his head enough to see
the kudzu-choked ravine drift by under the gray sky. “Some of us are
just closer to this end than others. Some are still near enough to that
spring to pretend the road leads somewhere else, or maybe goes on
forever. But we’re all headed to the graveyard sooner or later. Or the
river.”
