Sunday Post: Spring Has Sprung, But Where Are the Bees?

Spring is definitely here to stay and my Mount McKinley cherry tree was in full bloom. However, heavy rains and lack of bees mean there will be no red cherries this year on my tree. Very discouraging. I have only seen one or two bumblebees so far but am hoping for more in the summer.

Title: Murder in the Bowery: Gaslight Mystery #20
Author: Victoria Thompson
Published May 2, 2017 by Berkley
Genre: historical mystery
"Sarah Brandt and Frank Malloy search for a connection between a murdered newsie and a high society woman with dangerous habits."

Title: The Widow of Wall Street
Author: Randy Susan Meyers
Published: April 11, 2017, Atria Books
Genre: contemporary fiction
"... a woman struggles to redefine her life and marriage as everything she thought she knew crumbles around her."

Title: The Murder of Mary Russell: Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #14
Author: Laurie R. King
Publisher: April 5, 2017, Bantam
"Has Laurie King followed in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s footsteps and killed off her protagonist?"

These are the books most recent to my bookshelf. How about yours?

Last week, I finished several books:

Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty by Ramona Ausubel, June 2016.
Review: The author is an excellent storyteller and creator of interesting characters. The novel is about people seeking freedom - freedom from parents, families and social custom, from all that is expected of them. Edgar and Fern, born to wealthy parents, feel they have escaped all of the responsibility of their inherited wealth, and live in the freedom they want, until the day their fortunes change and Fern's parents lose all their money. The book is about how this couple look a harsher reality in the face and how they adjust to it, or not.
Recommendation: Five stars. 

The Girl from Yesterday by Kathryn Miller Haines, published April 17, 2017, Pocket Star Comments: The thriller features complicated dysfunctional families and a convoluted plot. The situations some of the girls find themselves in are almost too hard to read about, but it's a good thriller nonetheless. Three and a half stars.  The Day I Died: A Novel by Lori Rader-Day, Comments: I enjoyed the detailed settings - two very different small towns in Indiana and Wisconsin; plus the interesting main character, a woman who escapes abuse at home and raises a son on her own, moving from town to town to escape being traced, while working for the FBI and police as a handwriting expert. She is believed dead by some, but when she settles in a town close to her original home, secrets and the past come to light as she works to help the police solve a local crime. A thriller with an excellent plot. Five stars.  Baby Proof by Emily Giffin, published 2006.I was able to flip quickly through the novel and still get, I think, the gist of this novel of the marriage of a couple who agree from the beginning that they don't want children. But then, one of them changes their mind. An interesting though somewhat predictable read. Four stars.   What books are on your desk this week?

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First Chapter: Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty by Ramona Ausubel

Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty by Ramona Ausubel, June 14, 2016.
This book got mixed reviews, so I'm eager to see how I will like it! Another library book!

First chapter:
1976
Summer fattened everybody up. The family buttered without reserve; pie seemed to be everywhere. They awoke and slept and awoke in the summerhouse on the island, ate all their meals on the porch while the sun moved across the sky. They looked out at the saltwater cove and watched the sailboats skim and tack across the blue towards the windward beach, littered with the outgrown shells of horseshoe crabs. 

Picture the five of them, looking like a family. 

Book description:
"... an imaginative novel about a wealthy New England family in the 1960s and '70s that suddenly loses its fortune—and its bearings."

Would you read on?
MEME: Every Tuesday Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros sharing the first paragraph or two, from a book you are reading or will be reading soon