Sunday Salon: Romances

After several days in New York City, I came home and fell into a rom com daze of Netgalley ebooks. Here are two that I've just read.

The Spice Master at Bistro Exotique

by 

Samantha Verant 

Publication: December 6, 2022; Berkley Books

My goodreads review:

Spices mixed and grown by spice master Garrance are used by chef Kate Jenkins when she opens her new bistro in Paris. There is a hint of magic in the way that Kate is transported to other romantic places when she tastes Garrance's spices. 

I loved the use of flavors from around the world to create exotic dishes in this Paris bistro. The magic of taste and scents permeates the novel, a love story to cuisines and spices from around the world. 

The slow romance that develops between Kate and master chef Charles also adds its own magic to the setting and story. 

Thank You for Listening

by 

Julia Whelan

Published August 2, 2022; Avon Books 

My goodreads review: 

Sewanee Chester is an audiobook narrator who doesn't do romances, thinking they are too unrealistic with their happy ever after endings. What she rails against however, happens to her, with coincidences and surprises that make her life one romance trope after another.

Meeting and falling in love with a stranger in Las Vegas during a book convention, falling for another audiobook narrator whom she texts but doesn't meet face to face, possibly finding a happy ever after ending in spite of her reservations,

The plot is clever and full of not so surprising surprises, the characters engaging. I enjoyed the book's twists and turns quite a bit.

Other news:

I have to work on my basement during this cold spell, clearing it out to use as a workable den! Good thing I gave away so many of the books already to make spece for other things!

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Sunday Salon: The Moon and NYC

 I was out of town last week so have not read much at all. But I did get some sightseeing done, mostly by car and on foot. The day after we got back, it started to snow. 

Caught between the (full) moon and New York City, Queens

                                    Inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, Manhattan

Currently reading:

I started an ebook, and like it so far.

The Ingenue

by 

Rachel Kapelke-Dale

December 6, 2022, St. Martin's Press

A novel of suspense about the bonds of family, the limits of talent, the risks of ambition, and the rewards of revenge.

When former piano prodigy Saskia Kreis returns home to Milwaukee after her mother's unexpected death, she expects to inherit the family estate, the Elf House. But with the discovery that her mother's will bequeathed the Elf House to a man that Saskia shares a complicated history with, she is forced to reexamine her own past--and the romantic relationship that changed the course of her life--for answers. Can she find a way to claim her heritage while keeping her secrets buried, or will the fallout from digging too deep destroy her? *(publisher)

My review: 

I was intrigued and enthralled by Saskia, the piano prodigy, and her personality which led her into sabotaging her musical career at a young age for a highly questionable and secret relationship. Her mother's successful reinvention of traditional fairy tales for a living features prominently in the novel. This connection to Saskia's life years later was a brilliant part of the plot, as well as the Elf House, a mansion that has been in their family for generations.

I found this a well planned and plotted novel, with well developed characters, and a suspenseful story that certainly rewrites any fairy tale life that Saskia had imagined for herself.

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Sunday Salon: An Autistic Attorney, and Death on Nantucket Island

 Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Netflix Original Legal Drama, 16 episode series, 2022

"Extraordinary Attorney Woo" is an autistic but genius attorney who struggles with her personal and romantic life. In most instances, she rises to the occasion.

Attorney Woo was single handedly raised by her father, after her mother abandoned her. 

I was interested in this series because of the autism angle, and wanted to see just how they would portray an attorney with Asperger's Syndrome. The series turned out to have humor and pathos, and makes a statement about the disadvantaged or different and how society treats them.

I laughed and cried many times watching the series. I think a follow up will be in 2024.

Reading:

I've put away my ebooks for the time being and reading an actual paper book! 

Death on a Winter Stroll

(A MERRY FOLGER NANTUCKET MYSTERY #7)

by 

Francine Mathews 

Publication: November 1, 2022; Soho Press

The book's quite good so far and I'm enjoying the nature and wildlife descriptions of Nantucket Island, the Christmas Stroll celebrations on the island in December, in addition to the mystery plot. The police are faced with investigating deaths surrounding two groups - visiting celebrity stars and political figures. 

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Sunday Salon: An OK Thriller and a Madcap Romance

 Goodreads/Netflix reviews:

Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane (Goodreads Author) Published August 9, 2022, Avon Books

Harriet, wedding photographer, has seen people escape from undesirable partners. She herself has escaped from two, just barely. This is an interesting book dealing with breakups and some of the serious reasons behind them. An indictment too of social media used to spread false information about people and destroy careers and relationships. I found the themes of modern love and courtship both timely and universal. The Girlfriend by K.L. Slater (Goodreads Author) Published October 27, 2022, Bookouture An interesting but not extraordinary thriller. It didn’t have the wrenching, unexpected twists I was expecting. None of the plot twists were too surprising, and the girlfriend's personality and motivations could have been more original.  An okay read. What are you reading this week?  Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Sunday Salon: Lonely Stories and a Locked Room

 Library Finds:

I took home about five new library books today, hoping to read them as well as the ebooks I signed up for some time ago. I will be surprised by the ones I choose to read. Do you read all the library books you borrow, or do you land up picking and choosing in the end?

Not many books read this week as I've been binge watching Ozark on a new Kindle Fire! 

The Lonely Stories by 22 celebrated authors, April 19, 2022 by Catapult

About: A collection of personal essays about the joys and struggles of being alone by 22 literary writers including: Lev Grossman, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lena Dunham, Jesmyn Ward, Jean Kwok, Yiyun Li, and Anthony Doerr.

The Locked Room(Ruth Galloway #14)

by 

Elly Griffiths, August 4, 2022

Genre: British mystery, thriller 

About: Pandemic lockdowns have Ruth Galloway feeling isolated from everyone but a new neighbor--until detective Nelson begins investigating a decades-long string of murder-suicides that's looming ever closer. 

I haven't read many books set in pandemic times. This is the second one I've come across recently.

What are you reading this week? 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Book Tour: Somewhere Sisters by Erika Hayasaki

 Nonfiction book review

Somewhere Sisters: A Story of Adoption, Identity, and the Meaning of Family

by Erika Hayasaki, October 11, 2022, Algonquin Books

Identical twins Isabella and Hà were born in Vietnam and raised on opposite sides of the world, each knowing little about the other’s existence, until they were reunited as teenagers, against all odds. (publisher)

Topic: Vietnamese identical twin girls are given up for adoption at birth in 1998.  One girl was adopted by a wealthy Midwestern family in the U.S. and the other remained in Nha Trang, Vietnam with an aunt. This nonfiction work tells the story of the unusual steps taken to finally reunite the two sisters. 

The book: The author discusses the two girls, the twins, during their teens when they first meet, and compares their different experiences growing up, in terms of nature vs nurture science. The book also examines culture and belonging and the conflicts inherent in the topic of adoption.

I was very impressed with the amount of research that went into this book. I was also wowed by the author's interviewing of the U.S. and Vietnamese families and the multiple travels to and from Vietnam to complete this study and write the story of the twins before and after they meet.

The American adoptive mother's extensive efforts to reunite the girls and to prepare the Vietnamese raised twin to live with them in the U.S. is astounding. The amount of planning and funds needed to do this was extraordinary. 

I understand that many adoptees may not get this kind of dedication from adoptive parents but this book makes me wonder about other similar stories that we have not heard. 

A five star read. 

Book beginning: 

1998 

The babies are crying. Nguyen Thi Kim Lien treks through the clogged city streets of Nha Trang. She is exhausted, carrying two newborns in her arms in a double clutch. It is 1998. A hip malformation that she's had since birth forces her weight to rest more heavily on her right side and her legs to curve outward like the body of a harp. It was hard for her to find a job before birth. Now it is impossible.

Page 56 of ebook: 

I first learned about the sisters in 2016, six months after giving birth to my own identical twin boys. As part of a science journalism fellowship, I was researching stories about environmental interactions with genes.

 

 About the author:

Erika Hayasaki is an award-winning journalist based in Southern California, the author of The Death Class, and a professor in the Literary Journalism Program at the University of California, Irvine. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Wired, Slate, and others. She has been a 2021-22 Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow and a 2018 Alicia Patterson Fellow. She is the mother of a daughter and twin boys

Memes:The Friday 56. Find any sentence that grabs you on page 56 of your book. Post it, and add your URL to Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginnings at Rose City Reader.

 

Sunday Salon: The New Person by Loretta Nyhan

 A five star review: 

The New Person: A Novel by Loretta Nyhan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publication: November 29, 2022; Lake Union Publishing

Genre: women's fiction, family drama, contemporary fiction

Single mother Roxy, desperate for money to fight for joint custody of her child, becomes a surrogate for Owen and Nora, after their former surrogate suffered a miscarriage and was unable to carry their biological child to term. 

The novel focuses on these three individuals - surrogate and would be parents - their hopes, their conflicts, and their total dependence on one other for the desired outcome. 

The supporting characters in the story, Roxy's nine-year-old son, Aero; her ex Caleb and his media loving wife Liv; and a new friend and romantic interest for Roxy fill out the story in interesting and unusual ways.

I liked that the ending is not predictable and that the three find a conclusion that brings them to a new place, making a new person of each of them.Nothing is sugar coated, and I liked the realism as well as the compassion that went into the exploration of this subject matter - surrogates and the couples who rely on them.

In my mailbox:

Death on a Winter Stroll

(A Merry Folger Nantucket Mystery #7)

by 

Francine Mathews 

Publication: November 1, 2022; Soho Press

Genre: mystery, crime fiction

In this new mystery from Francine Mathews, Nantucket detective Merry Folger must face her toughest adversaries yet when wannabe Hollywood stars take over the island in the midst of quarantine.

Chief among Nantucket Island’s cherished traditions is Winter Stroll, when evergreen trees line Main Street and tourists and islanders share the spirit of the season in shops and restaurants gilded with firelight. This year, however, is different—the pandemic still threatens the lives of everyone determined to spend a long weekend thirty miles out at sea, with the closest ICU a helicopter flight away. (publisher)

Currently reading:

Ways to Die in Tokyo

by 

Thomas Ran Garver

Genre: thriller

Published: April 2022; ebook from NetGalley

For years Hank Fisher has chased his dream of becoming a mixed martial arts champion. Now he's on a losing streak in his adopted home of Tokyo, Japan, and realizing maybe the dream was never meant to be.

Broke, divorced, and alone, he hasn't seen his ex-wife and twin sons in two years and has no idea where they are. He also finds himself on the run from ruthless gangsters. (publisher)

Also reading:

I Spy China: Irreverent Insights from an Ex-Expat

by 

Antonia Petniunas

Published July 7, 2021; ebook from NetGalley 

Genre; memoir of an expat, nonfiction, travel

Called "laugh out loud funny, touching, sometimes stomach-churning," by reviewers, this genre-bending book reveals what it was like to live in a big, smoggy, industrial town in China before the twin plagues of Trump and COVID-19. (goodreads)

I'm eager to see what it's like to be an expat in a country where you don't know the language, are unfamiliar with the place, but approach the experience with a good sense of humor.

What are you reading this week?

 

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday