Review: Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist

Two Steps Forward

Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist, May 1, 2018, William Morrow
Genre:travel, contemporary novel
Setting: The Chemin, also known as the Camino de Santiago, is a centuries-old pilgrim route that ends in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. 

I loved this book, told from the point of view of a woman in her 40s or 50s and a man of the same age, walking from Cluny in France to Santiago in Spain on an old pilgrimage route. Though it's a novel, the book reads as if written by people who have travelled the Camino many times and know of what they speak! And in fact the authors are seasoned walkers of the pilgrim's route in Spain.

In the novel, the fictitious Martin and Zoe meet on the trail, traveling by foot from France and into northern Spain on the famous route. Martin pulls a cart he designed to hold his gear and hopes to sell the design to anyone who would buy it and manufacture it for public use. Zoe, using a backpack, is on the trail to try to escape memories of the very recent death of her husband, Keith. 

They have many setbacks along the Camino, meet interesting people from different countries, sometimes walking together and other times separately, and have varied experiences staying in hostels, hotels, pensions, and bed and breakfasts along the way. The narrators describe the terrain and each little town they enter, in detail. 

This is not only a travel story, about the experiences of walking over 2,000 kilometers, but also a love story of sorts. The book made me want to get into shape and travel along the Camino myself, and I've put the trail on my bucket list!

Objective rating: 5/5. Thanks to William Morrow for the review copy. 

Finished reading:

Sunburn

The flawed main character in Sunburn didn't get my sympathy even though she endured a lot in order to get to her final goals. Interesting plot and character; the book was entertaining even though not memorable. I gave it four stars.

New books include

Once Upon a Spine

A Panicked Premonition

Bought the Farm

A Just Clause

What books are you reading this week?

The Sunday Post  hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer,  It's Monday, What Are You Reading? by Book Date., and Mailbox Monday.

Hush, Hush by Laura Lippman

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. 

In a new book in her mystery series, Laura Lippman has her private detective Tess Monaghan in a mystery that plunges the new parent into a case involving murder and a manipulative mother. 

First paragraph, first chapter (from an Advance Readers Edition; final copy may differ):

Monday 9:30 a.m.

The first note appeared on Tess Monaghan's car on a March day that was cranky as a toddler -- wet, tired, prone to squalls. But Tess did not know the note was the first of anything. There is no first until the second arrives. So this note was a mere curiosity, a plain piece of paper folded and placed under the windshield wiper on her car. 

Book description: On a searing August day, Melisandre Harris Dawes left her two-month-old daughter locked in a car. Melisandre was found not guilty by reason of criminal insanity, although there was much skepticism about her mental state. Now that’s she’s a mother herself, private investigator Tess Monaghan wants nothing to do with a woman crazy enough to have killed her own child. But Melisandre’s lawyer has asked Tess to assess Melisandre’s security needs. Tess tries to ignore the discomfort she feels around the confident, manipulative Melisandre. But that gets tricky after Melisandre becomes a prime suspect in a murder.

Yet as her suspicions deepen, Tess realizes that just as she’s been scrutinizing Melisandre, a judgmental stalker has been watching her every move as well. . . .
The book is scheduled for release February 24, 2015.

What do you think? Is this a mystery novel you would continue reading?

Book Review: And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman

Title: And When She Was Good: A Novel by Laura Lippman
Hardcover; August 14, 2012; William Morrow
Genre: mystery, suspense
Book source: publisher/TLC Book Tours

About the book: Helen drops out of school as a teenager and leaves home to avoid an abusive father, eventually becoming a well-to-do madam and changing her name to Heloise. She feels she must keep her young son innocent of his jailed father's existence and the real nature of her work. When people from her past threaten her and her son's future,  Helen does what she has to do to save them both.

Comments: I thought about the title of the book, "And When She Was Good," and about the first verse of Longfellow's poem and considered the author's possible intent:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (American poet, 1807-1882)

There was a little girl, who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead,
And when she was good, she was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid. (from destinyland.org)  

On the surface, Helen seems to be the victim of an abusive father and weak mother, the victim of a boyfriend, Billy, with whom she ran off, only to have to work on the streets to support his drug habit. She also becomes a victim of Val, who leads her into a life of prostitution.

But is Helen so innocent and blameless really? She manages to get rid of her abusers and her competitors on the streets and in her business, without ever seeming to lift a finger to deliberately hurt anyone. Things just seem to happen and work in her favor, even after she becomes a madam and raises her young son Scott in the traditional way, hiding her real source of income and profession from him and others relating to Scott.

I thought this was a nuanced psychological study as well as a good mystery novel, very well written to reveal the subtleties of Helen/Heloise's personality in her fight for survival and respectability. I would definitely recommend it for general readers as well as thriller/mystery lovers.

Laura Lippman wrote seven books while working as a reporter at the Baltimore Sun. She now is a full time fiction writer, author of two New York Times bestsellers, What the Dead Know and Another Thing to Fall. She has won the Edgar, Quill, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, Agatha, Gumshoe, Barry, and Macavity awards.

Laura's Website / Facebook

For a list of other reviews and tour stops visit "And When She Was Good" blog tour at TLC Book Tours. 

Book Reviews: Betrayal of Trust; and The Most Dangerous Thing

Two detectives are called in when a snuff film is found on a young man's cell phone. The young man happens to be the step grandson of the Governor of Washingston State. The boy denies knowing anything about the film which shows the strangulation of a young girl, or who sent it to him. Detectives J.P. Beaumont and his partner and wife, Detective Mel Soames, are assigned to the case.

The story is about high school adolescents unsupervised by adults and others betrayed by the adults they trust. The book points out the dangers adolescents sometimes face, not only from adults, but also from each other.

Title: Betrayal of Trust by J.A. Jance
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published July 5th 2011 by William Morrow & Company
Objective rating: 4.5/5



A book with a similar overall theme is Laura's Lippman's The Most Dangerous Thing. Five adults were best friends growing up together. Now, Gordon, in his 40s, has died after crashing his car into a tree. Was it suicide or the result of drinking and speeding? The novel is written with flashbacks in every other chapter, to reveal what happened during their childhood and the consequences in adulthood. Slow to start off, the book nevertheless grabs you in the second half with its startling revelations about the adults and the children that they were.



Title: The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman
Hardcover, 384 pages
Published September 1st 2011 by William Morrow (first published August 23rd 2011)
Objective rating: 4/5

These two books were sent to me by the publisher. My reviews and ratings are in no way influenced by my receiving complimentary copies.

I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

I'd Know You Anywhere: A Novel

I'd Know You Anywhere: A Novel by Laura Lippman

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition edition (August 17, 2010)
Source: Uncorrected proof provided by publisher
Genre: Thriller, suspense novel

Chapter 1:

"ISO, TIME FOR"
 Eliza Benedict paused at the foot of the stairs. Time for what, exactly?  All summer long - it was now August - Eliza had been having trouble finding the right words. Not complicated ones, the things required to express strong emotions or abstract concepts, make difficult confessions to loved ones."

Publisher's description: " An edgy, utterly gripping tale of psychological manipulation that explores the lasting effects of crime on a victim's life."

 "Lippman tells a gripping tale of a young woman whose life dangerously entwines once again with a man on death row who had kidnapper her when she was a teenager."

I'd Know You Anywhere was nominated for the Edgar Awards 2010.