Liz Moore

Fiction 2020 | 480 pages

Mickey (Michaela) Fitzpatrick is the star of One Bright River.  She is a beat cop in Kensington, a less desirable location in Philadelphia.  This is a part of Philly where people go to get heroine, OxyContin, and numerous other drugs.  They wander the streets, the abandoned houses and storefronts in search of their next fix. Addiction and its deleterious effects are brutally on the pages of One Bright River.  Not surprisingly, this is also a part of the city where prostitutes hang on every corner.  Mickey tries to protect the most vulnerable of these sad people, and faces an uphill battle.  Four young women are murdered on her watch over a period of a few weeks.

Mickey’s younger sister Kacey lives among the people of these neighborhoods.  Of course, she has tried to get healthy and off the drugs many times, but it never lasts long.  Mickey has not told  many people that she attempts to keep an eye out for her sister while she does her police job.

Mickey and Kacey are estranged.  Still, it seems it has been too long since Mickey saw Kacey, even from a distance, and begins a private search for her.  She seems to have gone missing.  In this novel, we search for Kacey, as well as whoever is perpetrating murder.

The storyline moves back and forth between “Then” and “Now.”  “Then” is about the close and loving relationship Mickey and Kacey had as children, despite challenging circumstances.  “Now” is about Mickey out on the streets, doing her job, and trying to care for her four-year-old son, Thomas.

Long Bright River is a well-written suspense novel. I enjoyed it immensely and recommend it highly.  Mickey and the other characters have depth, personality, values, morals, quirks, proclivities.  Liz Moore is an excellent writer of the genre.  She keeps you turning the page.

July 2026

Kirsten Miller

Fiction 2024| 296 pages

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books is quirky. Perhaps implausible.  One-third of the way into this book, I read some reviews. Two reviewers describe this book as hilarious satire.  I missed this completely..  I found it very choppy and disjointed. Plus, there are 24 characters, making it challenging to follow.  I do not read humor in it at all. I did not giggle once.  

Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on a mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books — none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.  But she has not read any of them.

But Beverly’s daughter Lindsay sneaks in by night and secretly fills Lula Dean’s little free library with banned books wrapped in “wholesome” dust jackets. The Girl’s Guide to the Revolution is wrapped in the cover of The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. A jacket that belongs to Our Confederate Heroes ends up on Beloved. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.

That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. It’s a diverse and surprising bunch — including the local postman, the prom queen, housewives, a farmer, and the former DA — all of whom have been changed by what they’ve read. When Lindsay is forced to own up to what she’s done, the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town and change it forever.  

The second half of the plot really centers around a statue of Augustus Wainwright in the town square (in front of a town landmark.  Through a series of events, especially among the young people in town, people discover that Augustus, a slaveholder in his day, is Beverly’s great great great great great (four?) grandfather, which begins to explain why there are so many Blacks living in this southern bastion.

I cannot recommend Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books. It us not terribly well-written and is simply a rather bizarre story.

July 2026

Barbara Kingsolver

Fiction 1993/ 343 pages

After finishing The Bean Trees, I immediately read the sequel, Pigs in Heaven. I didn't like it nearly as much.  It picks up three years later, with the topic of how to arrange Turtle's legal adoption. given the morals and norms of the Cherokee nation.  A lot of the book takes place with Alice, Turtle's grandmother, on Cherokee land.

I missed Lou Ann and preferred to read about the child characters versus adults.

However, it is still Barbara Kingsolver, and she is an astounding writer.  I particularly enjoyed characters like Cash who is fascinated with weed birds ... what he calls pigeons ... and wants them killed off; and Lucky Buster, who has mental retardation and can't really tell home from the outside world and disappears often.  Kingsolver presented fascinating insight into the Cherokee tribe.

It is worth reading this sequel, I was just a bit unenthused.

July 2026

Constance Helmericks

Memoir 1969/ 303 pages

I kept thinking it was coming, but when I turned to page 124 and started chapter 8, all the air left me and I collapsed like a spent balloon and realized I could not go on.  I SO wanted to like this book, recommended by a friend.  The author talks extensively about the geography, the river, their camps, all the mud from big floods, people they meet along the way.  This is a memoir.  The author, Constance Hemericks, took her daughters, Ann (12) and Jean (14) up the Peace River to the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole (yes, the Peace River flows north) in summer, 1964.  Such an adventure!

However I ended my journey because ALL she writes about is the geography and writes very little about the three women.  I don't read about their personalities, their emotions.  I wanted to know what happened when the hair curlers floated to the top of the canoe.  I wanted to know about their periods and if they synced.  I wanted to know how they dealt with trash.  I wanted to know what was in the mail when they received a bundle.   I wanted to know how Constance dealt with loosing her shoe in the mud and if she really wet barefoot. Or what they ate for breakfast.  Or how they bear-proofed their food stash.  Or any teenage angst.  These sort of daily acts of living were not included in the writing.  How disappointing!  For me, she misses a very important part of the story.  In some ways, the essence of her memoir.

Unfortunately, I do not recommend Down the Wild River North.

And so I am moving on to whatever is next on my shelf.

July 2026

Daniel Quinn

Fiction 1992/ 383 pages

This is the 25th anniversary of the book Ishmael, Daniel Quinn’s 1992 philosophical novel.  I decided to read it, never having done so before.  It is a Socratic dialogue between an unnamed narrator, the pupil, and a highly intelligent, telepathic captive gorilla named Ishmael, the teacher.

The book critiques modern civilization, arguing that humanity's belief in its own supremacy and destiny is a cultural myth driving the planet toward ecological catastrophe. 

The book is structured around a few foundational concepts:  

Takers vs. Leavers: Ishmael divides human culture into two distinct groups.  Takers represent modern, industrialized civilization. They believe humans are the pinnacle of creation, own the world, and are destined to conquer and control it — a worldview born from the Agricultural Revolution.  Leavers represent indigenous, tribal cultures. They live within the limits of the natural ecosystem, viewing themselves as part of the community of life rather than its masters.

The Mother Culture:  Ishmael challenges his pupils to recognize the stories and assumptions that modern society blindly accepts, creating our cultures.

The Law of Life: Ishmael argues that humans, like all other species, are bound by natural laws. The core rule is simple: you may compete for resources, but you cannot wipe out your competitors or destroy the environment that sustains you. By attempting to "exempt" ourselves from this law, Taker culture has made itself captive to a destructive system.

A philosophical book, yes, but it also has spiritual undertones as well as direct addressing of mythology, ecosystems, sustainability, the importance of diversity, the purpose of humanity,  and the role of the human on the planet.

I found it quite intriguing, but not all of you will.  Aside from the journey that is a human talking with and learning from a gorilla, it reads more like a nonfiction book than fiction.  It does, however, make you think.  I recommend only with a grain of salt ... you must be in the right, receptive mind space to enjoy this book.

"With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?"

June 2026

Ann Cleeves

Fiction 2006/ 386 pages

We were at Beverly Beach State Park and there was a woman sitting in one square foot of sunlight at the end of her campsite, partially on the camp road, reading.  She had one square foot more sun than we had at our campsite, which was 100% completely covered with tree canopy.  I stopped and spoke with her on my way to the beach, and then again on the way back.  She was reading a book by Ann Cleeves.  Turns out the first book in the series she was reading was Raven Black. I decided to check her out.

The book was kinda fun, but the primary character, Inspector Jimmy Perez, did nothing for me.  No real defining personality traits.  He is not Armand Gamache (Louise Penny).  I don't think I will read any more of her.  I am looking for another mystery series now.  Not Louise Penny nor Robert Parker nor Patricia Cornwall nor Nevada Barr nor Dan Brown nor John Grisham. Looking for something set in the US or Canada.  Do you have a suggestion?

June 2026