Book Review: What Rose Forgot by Nevada Barr

What Rose Forgot, a novel by Nevada Barr

What Rose Forgot

First paragraph:

Rose's head jerks, drops, and she's awake. I've fallen asleep meditating, she thinks. It's been a while since she's done that. Over the years, an ease of concentration has incrementally developed. Staying awake is - was - easy. Eyes still closed, she sweeps her hands overhead, breathing in. The inner elbow of her right arm burns like a cigarette has been stubbed out on her flesh....

Rose, 68, wakes up frail, feeling like 100 years old, and finds herself on the grounds of a home for the mentally impaired, from which she seems to have escaped. She doesn't remember how she got there or why. After being hauled back into the maximum security home, Rose realizes she  doesn't belong there but is being drugged to make it seem as if she is mentally incompetent or suffering from ALS. Rose stops taking her medications, hides her pills, becomes slowly more alert daily, and plots her escape.

She not only has to get through locked doors, but find out who has done this to her - admitted her to this home from which no one comes out alive. Rose's husband has recently died, which leaves only her two stepsons and her 13-year-old granddaughter, Mel, the only one she thinks she can count on.

As the suspense builds, Rose, a former yoga practitioner, decides how to fool her caretakers in the institution and slither out of their grasp, with the help of granddaughter Mel and Rose's long-distance sister Marion. She also has to find out who committed her to the home and why.

I loved the intrigue, the unanswered questions posed by a tantalizing plot , and Rose's determination and quick thinking, at age 68. This was an entertaining read, which I did in just over a day.

This ebook was borrowed through NetGalley. Publication: September 17, 2019, Minotaur Books

Meme: Each week, Vicki at I’d Rather Be At The Beach hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros where readers share the beginning paragraph(s) of a book they are reading or plan to read.  

Book Review: Borderline by Nevada Barr

Borderline

Title: Borderline (Annea Pigeon #15) by Nevada Barr
Published April 26, 2010; Berkley
Genre: thriller

I love reading books set in locations I've never visited. It makes me feel I'm getting something new while being entertained with a good story. This is the case with Nevada Barr's latest mystery - in her Anna Pigeon national park ranger series.

Borderline takes place in the Big Bend National Park in Texas, just across the Rio Grande River separating the U.S. from Mexico. Park ranger Anna is on administrative leave, recovering from the trauma of confronting a ruthless murderer on the Isle Royale National Park in Michigan. She and her police chief/pastor husband Paul are now on vacation at Big Bend in Texas, taking a leisurely two week rafting trip down the Rio Grande with a group of college students, led by a park rafting leader. What should have been a journey of personal recovery and tranquility turns out otherwise for Anna, however.

Things start to turn sour quickly. The group sees a starving cow stranded on top of the high cliffs in a canyon on the river and Anna is determined to rescue it; the inexperience and stubbornness of one of the college kids causes the group to lose their inflatable raft with all their equipment and supplies. Then comes a shocking discovery and bullets from an unknown assailant on the U.S. side of the river.

Anna is again in the position of leading an investigation and recovery, this time while desperately dodging death along the steep banks of the river canyon and trying to protect the people in her party. All this coincides with the highly publicized visit to the park of a mayor who supports keeping park borders closed to Mexicans across the river. and who is running for the governor's position in Texas

Description of location, plot, and character development all blend to make this a memorable and thrilling ride down the Rio Grande. Though I guessed the culprit about halfway through the book, and the motives, since the author gave us so many hints along the way, I can still recommend this as another very good mystery, with situations that reflect current social and political realities.

Winter Study by Nevade Barr

Winter Study by Nevade Barr, published 2008.
Am now reading Winter Study by Nevada Barr, a popular novelist and a favorite of mine. It's set on the Isle Royale in Lake Superior near the Canadian border and deals with the scientific study of wolves. In this book, there is a giant animal, possibly a wolf/dog hybrid that is terrorizing the wolf population as well as the scientists on the island in the Wolf Study project.

Of course, as you read on, the evildoers turn out to be. as expected, not the animals, but humans.

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A friend's reading a book about China reminded me of the 18th century classic story, Dream of the Red Chamber, which describes in detail the lives of men and women behind the walls of a large family compound in traditional China. It's basically a love story about two young people who grow up in the compound that houses a large extended family and whose love for each other is thwarted by the matchmaking of the matriarch in the family.

Dream of the Red Chamber by Tsao Hsueh-Chin is available used and new on Amazon and probably in many college libraries, if not in a large public library.

I recommend it for its portrayal of life in the old China, particularly among the women of the time. I read the book (which comes in two volumes) many years ago and plan to go back to it, hopefully with a new perspective (age and all that).