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THE SECOND GIRL by David Swinson

September 17, 2016

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Frank Marr isn’t on an official case when he saves the girl. But he knows he can’t leave her behind. So he makes up a story, one that he thinks is fairly believable and will keep the cops off his back. But then the parents of another missing girl hear about the case. And now they want to hire Frank to find their daughter too.

Frank Marr is a junkie PI and ex cop. And he’s pretty much the most unlikable character I’ve come across in some time. And yet, I couldn’t tear myself away from the story.

When we meet Marr, he’s casing a stash house for the purpose of stealing their drugs. But when he breaks in he finds a girl chained in the bathroom – and considers leaving her. Just considers, fortunately for her. But what to do with her? If he breaks her out, he can’t bring her straight to the cops. He has to have time to come up with an excuse to be there. Plus, he wants to go back and get the coke he’d planned to steal in the first place.

See, not necessarily the kind of hero you’re going to put your faith in and get behind. And yet, Marr has kept his habit a secret from almost everyone who knows him. Which is how he ends up officially hired to find the second girl. And, as it turns out, he’s the best and only guy for the job. His insight into the drug world, both from his police days and now from his current position, puts him in a position to weed out information that has so far eluded the police.

Swinson, an ex cop himself, cleverly builds a story that is pretty impossible to step away from once you’ve started. Marr is dragged into a case he wants no part of but takes on for two reasons: one, the attorney he sometimes works for and sometimes sleeps with has faith in him, and two, he actually wants to help find the missing girl.

And it’s these two reasons that start to make him someone you kind of root for in spite of everything.

All things considered, I think Swinson has created a character readers will definitely want more of. Marr’s gray moral code and willingness to break all the rules put him in line with some of the genres favorite bad boy detectives and his habit makes him unpredictable to the extreme. I’m not sure if this is the first in a planned series, but I have to say I certainly hope so.

9/16 Becky LeJeune

THE SECOND GIRL by David Swinson. Mulholland Books (June 7, 2016). ISBN: 978-0316264174. 368p.

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LEAVE ME by Gayle Forman

September 16, 2016

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Gayle Forman is best known for her young adult books, especially her biggest best seller, If I Stay, which was made into a film. Leave Me is her first foray into the adult market, and I, and anyone else who reads it, will be very glad indeed.

Maribeth Klein is, I’m sorry to say, what we often think about when we think about 44-year-old working mothers. You know, the ones who have good jobs that force them to work more than 40 hours a week, and still keep up with all the household stuff like bills and shopping, and all the child care stuff. Not to disparage all those amazing husbands out there, my own included, who do half the parenting, we all know there are those who do not. And such is the case here.

Jason is a good husband and he helps out as best as he can. He’ll do whatever Maribeth asks of him, but she has to ask, and sometimes it is just easier to do it yourself. With pre-school age twins, it is particularly daunting. It is during a particularly stressful day that Maribeth suffers a heart attack; but she is so busy, and the symptoms for women are so different than they are for men, that it takes her about 24 hours to even notice. And even then, the only reason she ends up in the emergency room is because at her annual ob-gyn appointment, her blood pressure is really low, and they send her.

Under observation at the hospital, she learns she needs a stent, but due to complications ends up with a double bypass. We travel with Maribeth through this whole process, and it is engaging and emotional, especially for me. My husband had bypass surgery when he was 48 years old, so I was fascinated by this storyline plus it brought back a very painful time in my life.

After a week in the hospital, and a week at home, Maribeth’s family figures she is ready to take on everything again. And she tries, but she is exhausted. Truly exhausted down to the bone. Finally, she just snaps. She goes to the bank, withdraws a ton of cash, leaves her laptop and cellphone at home and takes off.

She ends up in Pittsburgh, where she was born. Maribeth was adopted and never really cared to find her birth mother. But the health issues changed that. She rents a small apartment, finds a local cardiologist who will take cash, and truly starts her recovery, part of which is finding her health history through her birth mother. And her relationship with her husband needs serious work, which in this case, is best done at a distance.

Forman has a real knack for creating characters that leap off the page and into life. This look at the leading killer of women, yes, more than breast cancer, is important. The exploration of a marriage is always interesting, and Forman does a really credible job here. This was a one night read for me, I couldn’t put it down. Don’t miss it.

Learn more about heart disease in women from Go Red for Women: “Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, causing 1 in 3 deaths each year. That’s approximately one woman every minute!”

9/16 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

LEAVE ME by Gayle Forman. Algonquin Books (September 6, 2016). ISBN 978-1616206178. 352p.

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How author Amor Towles developed his writing skills

September 15, 2016

Bestselling author Amor Towles (A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW and RULES OF CIVILITY) discusses how he honed his craft—with lots of reading.

A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW

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From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility—a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

“In all ways a great novel, a nonstop pleasure brimming with charm, personal wisdom, and philosophic insight . . .this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles’ stylish debut, Rules of Civility.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred)

With his breakout debut novel, Rules of Civility, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late 1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style. Readers and critics were enchanted; as NPR commented, “Towles writes with grace and verve about the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change.”

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.

A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles. Viking (September 6, 2016). ISBN 978-0670026197. 480p.

amor-towles Amor Towles was born and raised near Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale College and received an MA in English from Stanford University. For over twenty years he was an investment professional until he retired in 2013 in order to write full time. He lives with his wife and two children in Manhattan and serves on the boards of the Library of America, the Yale Art Gallery, and the Wallace Foundation.

Published in July 2011, his novel RULES OF CIVILITY has been translated into 15 languages. In America it was on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times. The book was ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the ten best works of fiction in 2011 and its French translation received the 2012 Prix Fitzgerald. His second novel, A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW, was published in September 2016.

Mr. Towles is an ardent fan of early 20th century painting, 1950’s jazz, 1970’s cop shows, rock & roll on vinyl, obsolete accessories, manifestoes, breakfast pastries, pasta, liquor, snow-days, Tuscany, Provence, Disneyland, Hollywood, the cast of Casablanca, 007, Captain Kirk, Bob Dylan (early, mid, and late phases), the wee hours, card games, cafés, and the cookies made by both of his grandmothers.

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THE KING OF SHANGHAI by Ian Hamilton

September 14, 2016

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The Triad Years

The book is a continuation of a series of novels by Hamilton featuring Ava Lee, a young Chinese-Canadian forensic accountant residing in Toronto. She had been working with her mentor and business partner Chow Tung who was affectionately been called “Uncle”.

Chow Tung passed away (as recounted in a previous book) and Ava subsequently entered into partnership with a friend and her sister-in-law Amanda, looking for business opportunities. The present novel finds her in China where she encounters a young man that coincidentally Uncle had also been mentoring.

Xu presents Ava and her partners with an exciting business proposition that they are bound to consider. Xu is the head of the Shanghai Triad, and coincidentally is running to become head of all the Triad societies. He indicates that if successful he intends to ask Ava to become his adviser and confidant.

Hamilton’s descriptions of places involved in Ava’s adventures are based on his visits to many of the Far Eastern locales described. The book, which does allude to happenings in prior novels featuring Ava, can be read on its own with no problem. Ava is completely fleshed out and is a very interesting person well equipped to handle the problems she faces. The novel is far from an all nighter but well worth the read for it’s placement in exotic locations that most of the readers might never visit. The treatment of Triads and their life styles is very reminiscent of novels about the personal lives of the Mafia, but blase rather than exciting in description.

9/16 Paul Lane

THE KING OF SHANGHAI by Ian Hamilton. Spiderline (September 13, 2016). ISBN 978-1487001599. 336p.

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FAMILY TREE by Susan Wiggs

September 13, 2016

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Annie Rush is the producer of one of the most successful food shows on network TV. Her husband, Martin, is the star and life is good – too good, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it did. When Annie finds out she’s pregnant, she can’t wait to tell her husband and goes rushing down to the set. Catastrophe ensues, and Annie ends up in a coma for over a year.

While she was asleep, her husband divorced her and moved her home to her family in Switchback, Vermont. And then she wakes up. A year in a coma is no joke, and Wiggs handles the recovery process with grace and skill. Eventually she is able to come home to the maple syrup farm where she grew up and learned her love of food from her grandmother. Gram is gone, but her mother and brother and his family are there, and her father, who had walked out on the family when she was just a kid. And her high school sweetheart and first love.

The book is written moving back and forth in time, “then” and “now.” Wiggs creates her usual excellent, fully realized characters and I couldn’t help but be drawn into the story. Another wonderful read from this supremely talented author.

9/16 Stacy Alesi AKA the BookBitch™

FAMILY TREE by Susan Wiggs. William Morrow (August 9, 2016). ISBN 978-0062425430. 368p.

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NATURALLY SWEET by America’s Test Kitchen

September 11, 2016

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Bake All Your Favorites with 30% to 50% Less Sugar

I am a long time fan of Christopher Kimball and the company he founded, America’s Test Kitchen. I had heard they were working on this cookbook, I think on the podcast, which, weirdly, I like even more than the PBS TV show. So when I saw an advance copy in the Random House booth at the American Library Association annual conference, I grabbed it (with permission, I’m not a book thief!)

My husband is diabetic and I don’t like using artificial sweeteners, so I was definitely interested. I am happy to report that they do not use chemical sweeteners or even Stevia, but rather sugar substitutes like honey and molasses, coconut sugar and one I’d never heard of, Sucanat, which Google tells me is “(an abbreviation for sugar-cane-natural) and has a stronger molasses flavor than refined white sugar and retains all of the nutrients found in natural sugar cane juice, including iron, calcium, vitamin B6 and potassium.” That appealed to me, so I purchased it from Amazon.

I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but I have made a few of the recipes in the book. I tried the No Fuss Banana Ice Cream. It had no added sugar but rather frozen bananas blended and mixed with unsweetened cocoa. It wasn’t bad, sort of tasted like a banana split, but wasn’t fantastic.

I then made the Chocolate Pudding Cake. This also had no added sugar, just the sugar in the half a pound of semi-sweet chocolate that’s in the recipe. I used half bittersweet, half semi-sweet and it also had Dutch-process cocoa powder. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it, the batter had a bitter taste to it. It was made like most pudding cakes, if you’ve ever made one, in that you make a thick batter, then pour boiling water over the top before baking. It smelled amazing, the whole house smelled like chocolate. The finished product was pretty good, I thought it could have used a little sugar but I guess that would have defeated the point. It was very chocolaty and had streaks of a not very sweet p naturally-sweet-blueberry-pie udding throughout, but it was the the little pockets where the chopped chocolate had been mixed in that gave it its deliciousness. This recipe took the usual 34 grams of sugar down about a third, so still not that low but certainly better.

The best thing I made was the blueberry pie, it was amazing, albeit a little messy. There was no added sugar either, which makes it even more miraculous. Instead, some of the fresh fruit is cooked down and that is used to sweeten the pie and it worked beautifully. Blueberry pie is one of my husband’s favorite desserts so he was absolutely thrilled with this.

The chapters:

Muffins, Quickbreads & Breakfast Treats
Cookies & Bars
Cakes
Pies & Tarts
Fruit Desserts
Puddings, Custards & Frozen Treats

I’ve noticed in some of the online reviews comments from people who were upset that butter and cream were commonly used ingredients. This is a baking cookbook, not a diet cookbook, people! It is a low sugar cookbook and that is quite a different thing.

As usual, America’s Test Kitchen has done a terrific job. If you like your desserts less sweet than what you typically get, or are cutting back on sugar for whatever your reasons, take a look at this book. I’m glad I did. Up next: chocolate chip cookies!

9/16 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

NATURALLY SWEET by America’s Test Kitchen. America’s Test Kitchen; 1 edition (August 23, 2016). ISBN 978-1940352589. 336p.

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Readings from YOU CAN’T TOUCH MY HAIR by Phoebe Robinson

September 10, 2016

Abbi Jacobson & Ilana Glazer present:

YOU CAN’T TOUCH MY HAIR by Phoebe Robinson

Abbi & Ilana give readings from YOU CAN’T TOUCH MY HAIR by Phoebe Robinson (comedian/author/2 Dope Queens podcaster). Hilarity/tension ensues.

YOU CAN’T TOUCH MY HAIR

“A must-read…Phoebe Robinson discusses race and feminism in such a funny, real, and

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specific way, it penetrates your brain and stays with you.” –Ilana Glazer, co-creator and co-star of Broad City

A hilarious and timely essay collection about race, gender, and pop culture from upcoming comedy superstar and 2 Dope Queens podcaster Phoebe Robinson

Being a black woman in America means contending with old prejudices and fresh absurdities every day. Comedian Phoebe Robinson has experienced her fair share over the years: she’s been unceremoniously relegated to the role of “the black friend,” as if she is somehow the authority on all things racial; she’s been questioned about her love of U2 and Billy Joel (“isn’t that . . . white people music?”); she’s been called “uppity” for having an opinion in the workplace; she’s been followed around stores by security guards; and yes, people do ask her whether they can touch her hair all. the. time. Now, she’s ready to take these topics to the page—and she’s going to make you laugh as she’s doing it.

Using her trademark wit alongside pop-culture references galore, Robinson explores everything from why Lisa Bonet is “Queen. Bae. Jesus,” to breaking down the terrible nature of casting calls, to giving her less-than-traditional advice to the future female president, and demanding that the NFL clean up its act, all told in the same conversational voice that launched her podcast, 2 Dope Queens, to the top spot on iTunes. As personal as it is political,You Can’t Touch My Hair examines our cultural climate and skewers our biases with humor and heart, announcing Robinson as a writer on the rise.

YOU CAN’T TOUCH MY HAIR by Phoebe Robinson. Plume (October 4, 2016). ISBN 978-0143129202. 320p.

phoebe-robinson PHOEBE ROBINSON is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actress whom Vulture.com, Essence, and Esquire have named one of the top comedians to watch. She has appeared on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers and Last Call with Carson Daly; Comedy Central’s Broad City, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, and @midnight with Chris Hardwick; as well as TBS’s Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. Robinson’s writing has been featured in The Village Voice and on Glamour.com, TheDailyBeast.com, VanityFair.com, Vulture.com, and NYTimes.com. She was also a staff writer on MTV’s hit talking head show, Girl Code, as well as a consultant on season three of Broad City. Most recently, she created and starred in Refinery29’s web series Woke Bae and, alongside Jessica Williams of The Daily Show, she is the creator and costar of the hit WNYC podcast 2 Dope Queens as well as the creator and host of the new WNYC podcast Sooo Many White Guys. Robinson lives and performs stand-up in Brooklyn, NY, and you can read her weekly musings about race, gender, and pop culture on her blog, Blaria.com (aka Black Daria).

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DISCOVERING YOU by Brenda Novak

September 9, 2016

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Whiskey Creek, Book 10

The publisher, Mira, sent me this book a while back and it’s been in my mass market to-be-read pile for a few months, but I’m happy to say I’ve worked my way down and have only one or two more books to go in that pile….at least until the Fedex man shows up later today. This was my first Brenda Novak book.

Novak writes romantic suspense, which is not my favorite genre and I don’t understand why exactly. I love suspense, I love romance, but I don’t always love them mixed together. That said, this was a quick read and I did enjoy it.

This may be the tenth book in this series, but I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. I can guess at a few of the romances that came before, and the one that’s coming next, but it definitely works as a first read in the series, at least for me. I know there are readers who only read series in order but while there are some series that definitely require that, most romances don’t. And apparently romantic suspense, at least the ones that I’ve read.

India recently moved to Whiskey Creek, right next door to the Amos family. Middle son Rod takes notice; well, actually all the men do, India is beautiful. But she’s moved to start her life over after her husband was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, right in front of her. Her in-laws are keeping her young daughter for a month to allow her time to get settled, and all them time to spend with their granddaughter but the relationship between India and her in-laws is strained at best.

India meets Rod when she picks him up from the side of the road. Someone has ran him down on his motorcycle, and Rod went after the guy, beating him unconscious. They find themselves confiding in one another rather quickly, and the relationship blooms, which makes India somewhat uncomfortable.

Her ex was released from jail after his trial ended in a hung jury, and he is still obsessed with India. And that is at the heart of the suspense here.

If you haven’t tried Novak, this seems like a good place as any to start. Her reviews are generally quite good and I can certainly understand why. If you like romantic suspense, I highly recommend this book.

9/16 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

DISCOVERING YOU by Brenda Novak. MIRA (May 24, 2016). ISBN 978-0778318804. 400p.

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GHOSTS OF HAVANA by Todd Moss

September 7, 2016

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A Judd Ryker Novel, Book 3

Judd Ryker is a professor who works for the U.S. State Department and his wife, Jessica, for the C.I.A; can this marriage last? They don’t discuss their cases but they have a rule, they will assist each other blindly as needed.

Four suburban soccer dads out on a deep sea fishing trip accidentally cross into Cuba’s waters, where they are captured and imprisoned in Havana. Unbeknownst to the other, both Judd and Jessica get assigned to the case. But when Judd gets in over his head, he phones home for the assist, yet is shocked to learn his wife is a helicopter pilot who can squirrel millions of untraceable American dollars into Cuba to help him out.

There is a subplot with a power hungry politician climbing into bed with a top level spy who is equally power hungry, but doesn’t do much to further the plot. The fact that the U.S. now has relations with Cuba is mostly irrelevant here, but still, this third entry in the Judd Ryker series feels timely.

9/16 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

GHOSTS OF HAVANA by Todd Moss. G.P. Putnam’s Sons (September 6, 2016). ISBN 978-0399175930. 368p.

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KAROLINA’S TWINS by Ronald H. Balson

September 6, 2016

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Attorney Catherine Lockhart and private investigator Liam Taggart are back in Balson’s third novel, this time with a new client, Lena Woodward, an elderly Holocaust survivor. Lena’s son doesn’t want them looking into anything, and forces a competency hearing in hopes of having himself appointed her guardian.

Meanwhile, Lena spends days telling Catherine about her childhood in Poland, the Nazi takeover of her town, her job as a seamstress that saved her from the first wave of Jews sent to concentration camps, her time with the resistance, her eventual trip to a camp, and her life since the war. Along the way, her childhood best friend, Karolina, is present, and the two girls try and save her twin babies during the war.

Lena has no idea what happened to the babies but if they survived, they would be 70 years old and she is determined to find them. The search takes Liam (and the author) to Poland, Israel and Germany, but it is Lena’s story that is so riveting.

In a departure from Balson’s previous novels, much of the story is told in the first person, befitting a book inspired by a Holocaust survivor’s true story. Readers who crave more books like Once We Were Brothers and The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah will be enthralled by Karolina’s Twins.

9/16 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

KAROLINA’S TWINS by Ronald H. Balson. St. Martin’s Press (September 6, 2016). ISBN 978-1250098375. 320p.

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