#thelibrarylady

Jill Shalvis brings us another Lucky Harbor novel with all its quirky characters and drop-dead handsome male inhabitants. Specifically, pastry chef Leah Sullivan, who has come home to take care of her grandmother recuperating from knee surgery and run the family bakery. She is also escaping from a reality show disaster. Jack Harper, childhood friend and all-around man-about-town, starts to see Leah in a different light when she fibs to Jack's mother that they are a "couple". Especially when they really do become a "couple".

Bliss is not the state of affairs is this novel by southern author Mary Kay Andrews. Andrews is probably my most favorite writer when it comes to womens' fiction that takes place in the south, specifically Georgia and South Carolina. Andrews resurrects characters from past novels, Eloise "Weezie" Foley and best friend BeBe Loudermilk (Savannah Blues, Savannah Breeze, and Blue Christmas) and let the disasters begin.

Weezie is to be married and her fiance is in New York as a guest chef in a new restaurant, (a newspaper article and photo looks like said fiance is having too good of a time with a certain restaurant owner). Friends Cookie and Mannie are helping to plan the wedding, and there is no such thing as too much of a good thing in their "tasteful" opinion.  Best friend Bebe is due to deliver her first child in four weeks with long-time beau Harry. Only it seems Bebe was never divorced from husband #2.

A charming , magical tale written in the vein of Garden Spells, this is the story of three sisters reunited upon the death of their aunt who raised them. 

Bitty, the oldest, sought escape from the family business, The Stitchery, as soon as possible by marrying. Meggie, the youngest, left as soon as she could as well, searching for the mother she can't remember.  But the middle sister, Aubrey, now the guardian of all the magic,the responsible one, has sacrificed her life to save and protect the legacy of their magic.  You see the Van Ripper sisters knit magic for whoever comes through their door. This magic has become a burden to the extent that each sister will come to chose what is most important to their lives.

This may sound like an oxymoron, but this is a historical fiction memoir of a real person. Lucy Ann Lobdell aka Joseph Lobdell, realized early in life that life did not entitle women the same rights as men in the mid-1800's.  She also felt more comfortable in men's clothes, hunted better than her brother, but wrestled with her sexual identity before words were invented to describe her lifestyle.

Raised in upstate New York, she impetuously married, was abused by her husband, then left her husband returning home to her unwelcoming family where she bore a child. Unable to provide for her daughter and unwilling to marry into another loveless marriage, Lucy runs away dressed as a man and begins a new life living and working as a man known as Joseph Lobdell.

In the desert of bad books comes an oasis, hopefully not a mirage, of a good book. And Necessary Lies is a an oasis of a good book. Although it starts slowly, be patient and persevere.  You will be well rewarded.

I think you can call this book historical fiction, as this is based on an actual events in North Carolina in the 1960's. From 1929 through 1975, the state of North Carolina administered a program called the Eugenics Sterilization Program. A program where over seven thousand citizens were sterilized. The program targeted the institutionalized,as well as women and their children on welfare. Social workers had the power to petition for the sterilization of those individuals. Some employees of the state could consider their ability as a blessing, but it could also be easily abused.

I choose this book as my latest selection for October for the Book Discussion I lead at Adams Place Retirement Living.  When searching for a selection for this month, this book kept coming up time and time again as a recommendation on various book club lists. A recommendation will not be coming from me.

If you are looking for uplifting, this is not the book. If you are looking for dismal life portraits this is the book.The author tells a story of the inhabitants of a Mumbai undercity (slum) over a three year period.Their struggles, the inhumane conditions they live in, battles with corruption, and the tensions they live with "behind the wall of the beautiful forevers", all combine to one depressing book. There is a death in almost every chapter.

The definition of a narcissist is one who has excessive self-love, together with a lack of empathy for others.  I know this sounds a bit harsh when referencing this to the subject of the above book, Burt Bacharach, but when he talks about the suicide of his daughter, Nikki, with actress Angie Dickinson, he refers to his daughter's reference to being unable to live without her mother but not him! Why not him he asks himself! Now, this is his daughter's suicide and he is upset that HE wasn't a reason she committed suicide.

I have decided that there should be a moratorium put on writing/publishing trilogies.  This has become the most overdone medium in book publishing history, I think. No one knows better than a librarian how competitive publishers have become in the book world, but now I am feeling quite used.

This book, thank goodness, is the last of a trilogy.  First there was Taking Eve, Hunting Eve, and finally, Silencing Eve.  Let me cut to the chase, read about half way through the first one, skip the second one, and enjoy the third one.  Johansen has been writing a long time and is savvy enough to know what her readers want, so someone is just plain greedy.

The plot in a nutshell is this: Eve Duncan, a forensic sculptor, has been kidnapped by James Doane, a psychopath and father of a depraved son/terrorist. The son was murdered upon a not guilty verdict by a french court by a hired assassin. Doane arriving as his son's body is being cremated, rescues the skull. Doane feels if his son's face is restored so will his son come to him.