Dean Koontz

Fiction 2014 | 398 pages

The 57-year-old narrator in our story writes about his youth … mostly from age eight to age 11.  Jonah Kirk lives in the city and we learn about the events and experiences that shape his life as a pianist, a lover of art, and ultimately a songwriter.  The book introduces readers to Jonah’s complex family dynamics, his early recognition as a musical prodigy, and his encounters with various characters that deeply influence his life

But the city (New York City) is not just an ordinary city.  Mixing some magic and surrealism into this tale makes the story intriguing, entertaining, a bit unbelievable.  For “the city” is also A character whom Jonah names Miss Pearl.  Miss Pearl plays a small, but very important, role.  Jonah refers to her as his supernatural mentor.  She is “the city.”  As she comprises a tiny strand from each resident, Miss Pearl is literally the whole population of the city and provides Jonah with occasional insight and perspective.

Koontz’s writing is delicious.  He draws you in, moves forward at a good pace, shares action as well as well-developed character insight, displays significant imagination.  I borrowed this read from Brian when I ran out of books on our camping trip to the Tetons.  I would not hesitate to read another Koontz, and yes, I surely recommend this one.  You just may fall in love with Jonah.

July 2026

Barbara Kingsolver

Fiction 1988 | 242 pages

With confidence and self-reliance instilled in her by her loving mother, “Missy” Greer is able to buy a very rough VW Beetle and take off west from rural Kentucky to find her own path after she graduates high school. She has to start her Beetle with one foot on the ground, to get it rolling.  She renames herself Taylor when she passes a road sign for Taylorsville.

When she stops for car repairs in Oklahoma, Taylor encounters a Cherokee woman, who gives her a “baby” and tells her that no one else can care for the child. Unsure what to do, Taylor takes the silent toddler to a motel. She discovers evidence that the child has been physically abused and molested. Sickened, Taylor resolves to take care of the child, naming her Turtle, and continues to drive west until two flat tires force a stop in Tucson, Arizona. Because Taylor can’t afford to replace the tires, she decides to stay in Tucson and look for work.

Mattie, who owns the tire shop, offers her a job which Taylor accepts, as she hasn’t a penny to her name.  Taylor meets Lou Ann, who becomes her roommate and best friend.  Lou Ann has a young son, Dwayne Ray.  Mattie eventually reveals that she provides sanctuary to migrants from Central America who seek political asylum in the US. She introduces Taylor to Estevan and Esperanza, a young couple from Guatemala who were forced to enter the country without authorized documents. These characters eventually form their own small family.

It takes her a long while, but eventually, Turtle begins to open up and interact with the world. She’s fascinated by vegetables and plants, starting to speak by pointing out beans in the garden. Her first vocabulary words are bean, “tato,” and carrot. Taylor grows to love Turtle like a daughter and is encouraged by the child’s resiliency despite the terrible situation she endured early in her life. 

The story picks up from there as we watch the evolving and fascinating characters of Taylor, Lou Ann, Turtle, Mattie, Estevan and Esperanza.  Kingsolver is a master at producing richly-nuanced characters as well as intriguing plots.

The Bean Trees (first published in 1988) is the first novel by Barbara Kingsolver. No wonder she went on to become a renowned author with seventeen published books.

I decided to read the sequel to The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven.  I highly recommend The Bean Trees.

July 2026

Steve Hamilton

Fiction 1998/ 277 pages

I was searching around for a mystery series … at least to read a few.  Two of my friends suggested Steve Hamilton, and the first book in his series is A Cold Day in Paradise.   The setting was very appealing to, as I was born and raised in Detroit.  But the setting alone would not have made it a good read.  It needed some good authorship, too, and this book was a page turner!  I am definitely going on to the second book in the series.

Alex McKnight was a cop in Detroit when he was shot three times, and his partner was killed.  Alex still carries a bullet in his body, too close to his heart to be removed.  That was 14 years ago.  Since then, Alex has taken his 3/4 disability pay and moved to Paradise to be a private investigator.  Paradise is a small town on the shore of Lake Superior, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

So how is it that Maximillian Rose, who is still in prison for his crimes against McKnight and his partner, had decided now is the time to seek revenge? We really don’t know how the timing came about, but clearly the effort was being put forth, with a couple of seemingly unrelated murders as the non-Rose perpetrator gets closer to McKnight.  Actually, I thought the explanation of the conclusion was a bit unclear.  At least it was to me.

My major issue with Hamilton’s work is his total lack of women characters.  The only one with any part to play at all in the novel was Sylvia, the woman Alex has/had an affair with.  I don’t know if Hamilton is sexist and doesn’t think a cop or a technician can be a woman, or if he just has no capacity to develop and write women characters.  That will be my litmus test in the second book of his that I read.

Yes, I recommend A Cold Day in Paradise for its pure fun as a mystery.

July 2026

Ruta Sepetys

Historical Fiction 2019 | 499 pages

Josie, I don’t know how you do it.  You always unearth not-well-known long books from a few years ago, and they are always stellar, such as this one, The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys.

This is a sweeping, beautifully written historical novel about a time in history you may not know much about, 40 years, beginning in 1939, of leadership under Generalisimo Francisco Franco in Spain.  Franco was an oppressive, authoritarian leader, a dictator, a fascist, a cruel leader who cared more about himself than his people.  The Fountains of Silence is about what Franco does to attract US investment, hoping to fund his government.  He turns old buildings into beautiful structures, and encourages complete support for the oil tycoons, journalists, professors, financial managers and others who want to explore how Spain can serve their business development.

Our main character is Daniel Matheson, who is visiting Madrid with his oil business owner father and Dallas, Texas socialite mother, for much of the summer of 1957.  Ana is a worker in the hotel, who must obey rules the management insists upon, such as not talking shout their own personal lives, and never being with a resident unless fulfilling a specific request.   Daniel falls in love with Ana Torres Moreno,  but that definitely breaks all the rules.

We follow their relationship as Ana shows Daniel some of the wonders of Madrid.  He also becomes friends with her sister Julia and brother Rafa, and Julia’s baby.  There are interesting sub-plots.  These criss-crossing threads keep me engaged in the book.  It is an easy read.  Took me just over two days. 

A major sub-plot is that Daniel’s father wants Daniel to assume leadership of his oil business in Dallas but Daniel wants to be a photojournalist.  He meets Ben, who works at a major magazine and encourages and mentors Daniel in his photojournalist efforts.

And there is Fuga, who wants to crawl his way out of poverty by becoming a bullfighter.

And why are there empty caskets in the pile of infant coffins that came from the orphanage Insula, who specializes in the adoption of young children.?

And who is sending Ana threatening notes and, for heaven’s sake, why?

I really enjoyed Fountains of Silence,  I learned a great deal about Spain, and also explored family dynamics, love, mystery, resistance to social change, career decisions, cultural clashes on minor issues, such as what shoes are important to wear to a particular event, the role of adoption during a post civil war occurrence, and hidden truths.  My most important learning is the one the author seemed to want for us … to explore the silences we all keep; the value of silence; the debilitating aspects of silence; the release of silence; the necessity of being silent no more.

I completely recommend The Fountains of Silence.

June 2026

Geraldine Brooks

Fiction 2005/ 280 pages

I don’t know, I just couldn’t quite enjoy this book.  The plot is wonderfully inventive.  This is the story of March, who is the father of Louisa May Alcott’s four little women, Meg, Jo, Amy, and Beth.  The storyline takes place in two venues/timelines, one when March is 39 and leaves his young women and his wife Marmee at home in Concord, Massachusetts.  He signs up for the Civil War as an idealist, a vegetarian, an abolitionist, an anti-slavery and pro-freedom revolutionary, and a chaplain.  The other story is about 20 years earlier when he meets and marries Marmee and begins to have daughters.  It is perhaps the plot itself, as creative as it is, that sours the book for me. Having read Little Women decades ago, I love the chapters where March is home with his family.

I find the chapters that tell the story of the Civil War to be boring, horror filled, brutal, barbaric, grim, sad, powerful, and violent, coupled with March’s debilitating inability to be a chaplain neither he nor his charges can be proud of.  Though, when he begins to teach young black children their letters, he finds his purpose and comes into his own.

Brooks is, of course, a magnificent writer.  Perhaps I am simply done with stories about past wars, at least for a while.

I can recommend this book to lovers of Geraldine Brooks.  It is another one of her many masterpieces. Enjoy March.  If you read it and love it, I would be pleased to read your review of it.

June 2026

Andrea Sigetich

Many genres | Thousands of pages

It has been ten years today since I started my blog, Dusty Shelves.  Hard to believe!  I still enjoy writing it and hope you still enjoy reading it too, at least once in a while.  First book I blogged on was Dead Wake by Erik Larson.  It received four hearts. Here is what the hearts mean.

Like it a lot or loved it; I recommend it; put it on your list!

Like it; I recommend, with some reservations.

I don’t recommend it, though it was compelling enough for me to finish reading.

I couldn’t get through it

May 2026

Rachel Joyce| Fiction

2015, 384 pages

Made it half-way through.  I found The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry to be Insipid, implausible, simple, contrived.

Harold sits at breakfast one day with his wife and opens a letter from a long-ago colleague, Queenie Hennessy.  Queenie tells him she is in hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is some 600 miles north of him, and is dying of cancer.  He believes he likely has some unfinished business with Queenie.  He writes her a short note and goes to the post to send it to her.  But he walks past the first postal box and keeps going, past the second and third.  By the afternoon he has decided that Queenie will only stay alive as long as he keeps walking forwards her.  And so he does.  

What I find implausible is that by the evening, when he calls home, his wife Maureen knows that he is five miles north.  What wife would not throw a small pack in the car with e few clothes, a pair of shoes, his cell phone, and maybe some snacks, and take it to her husband?  Even if their relationship has seen better days?

What I find both insipid and simple is that he meets people who allegedly give him insight.  But what he hears is not insightful.  Only platitudes, and words that remind him of his past.

The story is contrived … forced, artificial … only the fantasy of the author with no real story.  And Harold Fry has no emotional pallet, no depth.

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

May 2026