Patti Callahan Henry

Fiction 2023 | 350 pages

"Not very long ago and not very far away, there was and still is an invisible place right here with us."

On the last day, in the last hour, of her 15-year job at Hogan's Rare Book Shoppe in Bloomsbury, England, Hazel Linden opens a package that was mailed to the store, and in it she finds a first edition and original illustrations of a book that takes her breath away and is about to change her life.  The title: Whisperwood and the River of Stars by Peggy Andrews (whoever she is!) The Secret Book of Flora Lea is, in some way, reminiscent of The Echo of Old Books (see Dusty Shelves, September 2024).

Hazel knows the quote above, and all about Whisperwood, because it is her story, from her imagination shared only with her sister Flora.  She started each tale about Whipserwood with these words, and Henry starts this book with the same words.

Hazel (14) and Flora (6) were "vaccies."  They were sent away to a temporary home that was far away from London to keep them safe from dropping bombs in 1939.  They were fortunate; they ended up in a home with a mom who loved them, and a “brother” named Harry.  Their real mom visited them often, and they stayed safe from much devastation and death in London.

But one day her little sister Flora disappears and isn’t seen again.  The police think she drowned in the river, but her body is never found.  The time in this book travels between 1939 and 1960.  So we see Hazel and Flora during the war, and we see Hazel (the main character) in 1960, having found this book that tells the story that she made up and no one knows about except Flora.

So, of course, the essential question is, “Is Flora sill alive?  Did she write this book?”  And that’s what we witness as we read this tale, which the author calls historical fiction because of the truth around the evacuees and children who become lost.  We witness her search for the answers, while we experience the love she still holds for her younger sister.

I LOVED this book! The story; the development of Hazel as a character; the intrigue in finding the answer to “Is Flora dead?”; as well as excellent and engaging writing all combine to make it a page turner.  I may suggest it for book club next year.

I absolutely recommend reading The Secret Book of Flora Lea.  The author has written 20 books.  I just requested her last book, which has only been out six weeks, at the library, If you have read any of her straight fiction or her historical fiction, please let us know in the comments section!

May 2025

Ellen Raskin

Fiction 1978| 182 pages

Sixteen people are invited to live in an apartment building north of Chicago.  One of them allegedly murders the owner of the building.  The owner’s will invites them all into a game, with clues, because he knows who is going to kill him.  Whoever discovers the murderer inherits his $200,000,000 estate.

I read some five-star reviews so I could understand why anyone LIKED this book!  Adults are writing reviews, so much of it was nostalgia for their youth, and it brought back memories.   I thought it was one of the poorest written books I have ever read, even trying to accommodate for the YA audience.  Too many characters, all of them stereotypes, cliche and shallow. Each character was just glossed over, and even though they were described in a basic way, there was nothing to really draw me in or make me care about them.  Everyone, including me, loved Turtle, however.  She was the only character with any development; she is the exception.  She is 13 years old for most of the book.  In the end, she acts as the lawyer who tries the alleged murder case. I can see why a young reader might remember Turtle well into adulthood.

Not an uninteresting plot, but I thought the search for the culprit was more interesting than the conclusion.  I did not have difficulty reading it, just thought it wasn’t any good.

My friend Mary and I read this book together.  It is one from the Goodread’s 100 books list (one for each of the last 100 years).  Some of Mary’s words are in this review.  Neither one of us will be recommending this book to you or anyone else!

April 2025

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Fiction 2019 | 402 pages

I was intrigued to read how the enslaved Black man Hiram Walker refers to the land-owners as "Quality."   Slaves are "Tasked."   "Low" refers to low-class whites. Those sent down to be sold are “gone Natchez-way.”  The novel explores the dehumanizing effects of slavery, focusing on the emotional and psychological toll it takes on individuals and communities.

We begin when Hiram is still a child and follow him into adulthood.  He is so brilliant, so real, so aware and conscientious, that he is brought to his white enslaver's home, the home of Howell Walker, to care for the house and his idiot of a son Maynard, through his white wife.  Though both Hiram and Maynard are sons of Howell, Hiram is the son of one of Howell's slaves, Rose.

In The Water Dancer‘s opening pages, Rose returns ... this time as a phantasy figure on a stone bridge, her hips dipping and swaying to invisible music, an earthen jug “fixed on her head like a crown.” Hiram has no memory of her or the day she was taken away ... which pains him ... but does see her magic.  Hiram has two supernatural powers. He has a literal perfect memory, and he has the gift of Black magical realism, a supernatural gift of travel through space and time, which allows him to remember the past and alter the present.

It is easy to get lost in Coates' lush language.  The story pulls you in and along.  As Hiram runs from the Walker home, he encounters many trials but is ultimately connected with the Underground.  For all I thought I knew about the Underground, The Water Dancer taught me so much more.  I have greater perspective and knowledge about how the Underground extensively planned for those they helped transition from slave to free man.  A slave did not just run to a certain place and wave a flag and be transported.

Hiram Walker is recruited into the Underground and uses his powerful memory and begins to understand how to harness his other, more mystical, powers and put them to good use. And that good use involves escaping from slavery and helping others, through challenge and triumph, to do so as well.

Coates’ characters are rich and deep.  I particularly like that he can write female and male characters with equal insight.  There are many powerful women in this book, including some who are buried deep in slave-owner families who, following their truth and heart, are invisible abolitionists.  Some reviewers were put off by the magical realism.  I was not.  It added a layer to this story that would have rendered it incomplete if it was left out.

This is not an easy read, nor a quick one, but it is a novel that will stay with you, and make you think, and I do surely recommend it.

April 2025

Andy Weir

Fiction 2011 / 376 pages

When a freak dust storm brings a six-person 31-day mission to Mars to an unexpected close, an astronaut who is left behind fights to stay alive.  One minute, astronaut Mark Watney was with his crew, struggling to make it out of the deadly Martian dust storm and back to the ship, currently in orbit over Mars. The next minute, he was gone, blown away, with an antenna sticking out of his side. The crew knew he'd lost pressure in his suit, and they'd seen his biosigns go flat. In grave danger themselves, they made an agonizing but logical decision: Figuring Mark was dead, they took off and headed back to Earth.

As it happens, though, Mark is very much alive. He wakes up some time later to find himself stranded on Mars with a limited supply of food and no way to communicate with Earth or his fellow astronauts. And he is not ready to give up!  Luckily, Mark is a botanist and a mechanical engineer as well as an astronaut. So, armed with a few potatoes, he becomes Mars' first ever farmer. And the person person to live alone on the planet.  And the longest living human on Mars, hundreds of "sols" longer than anyone else (a "sol" is a Martian day, which is 39 minutes longer than an earth day).  Mark must overcome a series of increasingly tricky mental, physical, emotional, and technical challenges just to stay alive, until finally, he realizes there is just a glimmer of hope that he may actually be rescued. (I stole this review quite liberally from a Goodreads reviewer.  She did such a fine job!)

While Weir writes to the lay audience, I still found the technical details of CO2, hydrazine, airlocks, water reclaimers, electrical connections, RTGs, rovers, fuel plant compressors, a Hab, and many tools, mathematical equations, hypotheses, and test-runs a little overwhelming intellectually.  Still, the author’s ingenuity in finding new scrapes to put Mark in, not to mention the ingenuity in finding ways out of said scrapes, is impressive.

But the technical story is interspersed with the human side, as we learn what is happening at NASA, especially when a low-level staffer, Mindy Parks, discovers that Mark is still alive, shortly after his funeral.

Mark Watney is not only brilliant, he is also an amazing optimist, and unwaveringly funny.  His humor contributes significantly to the pleasure of this book and often cuts the tension.  It is also an essential component of his survival and makes him easy to relate to.

Andy Weir did a great job with his first novel, which was actually created chapter by chapter on his blog.  And then it sold for a movie!  Good job, Mr. Weir!  Yes, I recommend The Martian.

This is on the Goodreads list, top rating, for 2011.

April 2025

Dorothy Sayers  |  Fiction

1935, 544 pages

This book begins with our main character, Harriet Vine, attending Gaudy Night, which is a weekend gathering at her former college.  All that occurs is conversation after conversation with other women in attendance, some of whom Harriet remembers, and some whom she does not.  It is as exciting as any conversation at a school reunion ... NOT.  But then, at the end of Chapter 3, something occurs to entice us into thinking that there really will be a mystery to be solved, and some tension begins to build.

Reviewers say it is best to read the Harriet Vine books in order:

• Strong Poison (1930)
• Have His Carcase (1932)
• Gaudy Night (1935)
• Busman's Honeymoon (1937) (As Lady Peter Wimsey)

Had I read these in order, this may have helped me not confuse Peter Wimsey, Harriet's co-investigator into crimes, with Phillip Boyes, Harriet's ex-lover, whom she was accused (and acquitted) of murdering with arsenic.

I made it to chapter four, but that is all I could abide.  I don't recommend Gaudy Night, but then, if you read this series in order, you might enjoy it.

(I am reading some books from a delightful list ... the highest rated books by Goodreads reviewers for the last 100 years.  I have already read 54 of them, to the best of my recollection, and have pulled out another dozen or so from this list to read now.  This is my first selection, the highest rated book in 1935).

April 2025

Anne Tyler

Fiction 2025 | 176 pages

BORING!

Here, in San Jose del Cabo, there is no swimming ... the beach is black-flagged as unsafe.  But you certainly can do a beach walk, as we have done every day.  The surf breaks about 30 feet out, and it is shallow only that far ... maybe 30 or 40 feet.

"Shallow' is the operative word in the last sentence.  This book is shallow.  The plot, if it exists, is shallow, and the characters are interminably shallow. Three Days in June is 61-year-old Gail's story ... the day before her daughter Debbie's wedding, the wedding day, and the day after.

IMHO, a terrible and boring book.  I do not recommend you waste your time.

April 2025

Ritu Mukerji

Mystery Fiction 2022 | 287 pages

It is 1875 in Philadelphia and the recently established Women's Medical College is the employer of our main character, Dr. Lydia Weston, where she is a Professor of Medicine as well as an attending physician.  Of course, women physicians are rare at this time, suspect, held as incredulous, disrespected.  When a patient of Dr. Weston's, Anna, goes missing and then is believed to be found dead, Lydia becomes an invaluable source of information to the detectives working the case.

On page 150, a twist occurs that I did not see coming!

I love Dr. Weston, and her bright, smart, snappy, assertive personality.  I keep wanting to see what realization or insight she would find next.

This is the Deschutes Public Library community read for 2025 and, therefore, has nothing offensive in it and is a bit saccharin.  But/and I found it an enjoyable mystery, imbued with feminist sensibilities.

I recommend it for a fun, pleasurable, easy read.

April 2025

Tim O'Brien

Historical Fiction 1990 | 233 pages

Wow.  I can't believe it took me this many years to get around to reading this book. The Things They Carried is a powerful book written by a Vietnam Vet, Tim O'Brien.  He mixes true stories with fictionalized stories and speaks directly to his readers a few times.

The things they carried included, of course, new testaments and pictures of girlfriends back home, but also grandpa's hatchet, comic books, statuettes of the Smiling Buddha, ghosts, expectations of their parents, fear, anger, joy, excitement, a starlight scope, moccasins, a pebble.

They also carried weapons, ammunition, grenades, C-Rations, knives, and flashlights. Depending upon their jobs, they might carry morphine and bandages, or a satellite radio, or code books.

We learn about many of the platoon members ... who they are, and, in some cases, how they died.  We learn about what veterans carry after they leave Vietnam forever, including guilt and sorrow. And lifelong friendships.  This is a short read, but not an easy read.  It took me just a day to read it.  Having recently read The Women, it gives me yet another perspective on the atrocious war in Vietnam.

The chapter "On the Rainy River" must be one of the best pieces of writing I have ever read.

This book will move you and not easily be forgotten.  Yes, it should be read by all of us.

April 2025

Alice Hoffman

Fiction 2005/ 331 pages

The Ice Queen seems like an intriguing story, but then, near the end of it, the depth of the story and the characters and their relationships really come to fruition.  I cried in the closing pages.

The ice queen herself is the narrator, and we never know her name in this first-person novel.  She is struck by lightning at her home in New Jersey and turns cold.  I don’t mean emotionally (though that is a battle she faces, too), but the “effects” of the lightning strike on her include the loss of mobility on her left side, an inability to see the color red, and a body that is ice cold, that needs to take ice baths.

Afterwards, her brother Ned convinces her to move to Florida which, as it turns out, is the lightning-strike capital of the country, and she enters a study of lightning-strike survivors.  There she meets her friend Remy and her lover Lazarus (his real name is Seth, but after being dead for nearly an hour after his unique lightning strike, he earns a new nickname). Lazarus has a variety of different “effects,” but he is in many ways the opposite of our woman.  He is literally burning hot.  Sex happens in a bathtub of ice, and ice is necessary to cool off her intimate parts afterwards.

There is also some magic in the book, as the main character believes she has the power to wish something into existence.  This is solidly formed in her when, as a child of 8, she, in anger, wishes that her mother will never come back when mom goes out to celebrate her birthday, and her wish comes true.

The description of lightning strike “effects” is fascinating.  There are many different types of strikes, it turns out, which have many different effects on the victim’s body and psyche.  We follow the narrator’s story into her partial recovery, as well as what happens to Remy and Lazarus.  I was surprised at how much, near the end, we follow the narrator’s relationship with her brother Ned and sister-in-law Nina, as the narrator finally learns what love really is.

This is an odd book, and I am having trouble both rating it and deciding whether or not to recommend it.  It is an engaging read … I read it quickly.  I have landed on recommending it, knowing it is an unusual read.

April 2025