Books I've read: Under the Stars

I read this one over the weekend, and while it wasn't a bad read, I feel a little bit like the author couldn't

decide exactly what they wanted to write and threw everything they could in there.  It's part romance, part family saga, part mystery and part historical fiction.  With a little bit of thriller thrown in there for good measure.  It kind of works, but it does kind of give you whiplash as a reader.

Audrey has recently been abandoned by her husband and left with a pile of debts after he didn't;t tell her the restaurant they owned together was tanking.  Still trying to dig herself out of the financial and emotional hole this has left her in, she agrees to help her mother, Meredith,, a famous Hollywood actress, dry out before she reports for her next role.

They head to the remote New England island where Meredith grew up for some privacy and isolation.  Neither she nor Audrey are thrilled to be there, but in terms of privacy, they can't fault it.  Plus, Audrey's father still lives there, running the local bar like his parents did.  Having grown up off-island, Audrey's relationship with him is tentative, at best, but she's curious enough to make some effort.

When she finds a trunk full of old paintings in the basement of the bar, it excites curiosity, even among wealthy neighbor Sedge Peabody, one of the wealthiest residents of the island.  The mystery of how a trunkful of unknown paintings from one of America's leading artists came to be hidden in the cellar of the local inn is one demanding to be solved.  As is the question of who the woman is in all these paintings.

Told in parallel with Audrey's story is the story of the woman in those paintings, a woman who fled Boston with the law on her heels in 1846 and was one of the survivors of a catastrophic shipwreck.  Who this woman was and why she was on this ship the night it sank with the detective in charge of investigating the mysterious death of her employer makes up another strand of the story.

The third strand is Meredith's story, about growing up on Winthrop Island with one goal: to get away and never come back.  A goal that becomes more and more difficult to imagine as life throws obstacles in her wake at every turn.

I didn't hate this book.  There was so much going on, it was easy to keep turning pages to find out what might happen next.  But that's really the problem with it:  there was so much going on.  Murder and deception and blackmail and theft and kidnapping and... well, it goes on.  And somewhere in there, were three romance stories too.  It was just a bit much!  There was enough plot in this one book for about three books.

So, if you're looking for something that will keep you turning pages and might make your head spin from how quickly the mood changes from one thing to the next, this one might be fore you.

But don't just listen to me. Here's the blurb:

Audrey Fisher has struggled all her life to emerge from the shadow of her famous mother by forging a career as a world-class chef. Meredith Fisher’s glamorous screen persona disguises the trauma of the tragic accident that haunts her dreams. Neither woman wants to return to the New England island they left behind and its complicated emotional ties, but Meredith has one last chance to sober up and salvage her big comeback, and where else but discreet, moneyed Winthrop Island can a famous actress spend the summer without the intrusion of other people? Until Audrey discovers an old wooden chest among the belongings of her estranged bartender father, Mike Kennedy, and the astonishing contents draw the women deep into Winthrop’s past and its many secrets…attracting the interest of their handsome neighbor, Sedge Peabody. How did a trove of paintings from one of America’s greatest artists wind up in the cellar of the Mohegan Inn? And who is the mysterious woman portrayed on every canvas?

On a stormy November night in 1846, Providence Dare flees Boston and boards the luxury steamship Atlantic one step ahead of the law….or so she believes. But when a catastrophic accident leaves the ship at the mercy of a mighty gale, Providence finds herself trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the one man who knows her real identity—the detective investigating the suspicious death of her employer, the painter Henry Irving. As the Atlantic fights for her life and the rocky shore of Winthrop Island edges closer, a desperate Providence searches for her chance to escape…before the sea swallows her without a trace.

In Under the Stars, the destinies of three women converge across centuries, as a harrowing true disaster at the dawn of the steamship era evokes a complex legacy of family secrets in modern-day New England. Williams has written a timeless epic of mothers and daughters, of love lost and found, and of the truths that echo down generations.

Weekly Goals 2-2-26

 It's a short work week this week because Friday is Waitangi Day.  So, I have a lot to pack into four workdays.

One of my favorite bands is playing here twice at the end of the week and I'm going to both gigs, once on my own (although I have a ton of friends going that night too), and once with a friend who has a milestone birthday this week.  Very excited for that!  It's been years since they last came here.

Writing-wise, I'm still waiting for some idea for a novel to slay me.  I have nothing that's burning to be told, just a few odd ideas floating around, but none of them are big enough to start writing yet.  I don't think it matters since I have three complete novels still waiting to be sold, and I'm still working through Street Smarts with my crit group.  I think that will be my entry for Rev Pit this year.  See if the query and first pages work.

With the three-day weekend coming up, I'm going to have plenty of time to get everything done that needs doing, so I swear I will get that garden weeded.  I didn't get to it over the weekend,

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 30-1-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

And can you believe it's the end of January?  That's crazy!

It's been a busy week, but I've had the chance to catch up with some friends I don't see often which is always good.  I've also ridden my bike to work almost every day.  Tuesday was too wet, but the rest of the week I managed it, even if it was pretty windy a couple of days.  Long may that continue!

I have nothing planned for the weekend, which is good too.  Next week is going to be fairly mad, so a quiet weekend is just what I need.  I have a lot of work to do for my critique group, so I'm planning to get into that.  And if the weather's okay, maybe do a bit of gardening.

Only one rejection this week, so I'll take that as a win.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Hard Girls

This was one of those frustrating books that should have been better than it was.  All the elements were there - great characters,  compelling storyline and some good twists, but somehow the book fell flat for me.

Set across different time periods, the book is about twins, long estranged, who reunite to solve an old mystery about their mother who disappeared when they were young.  Jane, who as an adult lives a quiet suburban existence, being a good mother to her daughter and as a good a wife to her husband as she possibly can, keeps her past cleanly buttoned away.  She takes care of her father the best she can, but their relationship isn't particularly close.  

When Lila, the twin she hasn't seen or head from in many years makes contact and says she thinks she's found their mother, Jane's safe, suburban life is irrevocably disrupted.  She initially thinks she might be able to ignore Lila, but what happened with their mother back then has had such a profound effect on both girls' lives and on their father, she has to know the truth.

Woven into this story about the now-adult girls seeking the mother who abandoned them is the story of their teenage adventures and the act of violence that changed both their lives, and their relationship with each other, forever.

This book wasn't hard to read and the plot was compelling enough to keep me turning pages, but I really didn't like or sympathize with any of the characters.  Except, bizarrely, the twins' father.  Everyone made choices that didn't make sense for who they are and the reveals of why they made these choices never really satisfied.

So, while there is plenty to like here - espionage, secret identities, action and adventure - it's not a wholly enjoyable book.  So I won't recommend this one.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Two estranged twin sisters as they hunt down their elusive mother in this razor-sharp crime novel from "master of the dark arts" J. Robert Lennon. (Kelly Link)

Jane Pool likes her safe, suburban existence just fine. She has a house, a family, (an infuriating mother-in-law,) and a quiet-if-unfulfilling administrative job at the local college. Everything is wonderfully, numbingly normal. Yet Jane remains haunted by her her mercurial, absent mother, her parents’ secrets, and the act of violence that transformed her life. When her estranged twin, Lila, makes contact, claiming to know where their mother is and why she left all those years ago, Jane agrees to join her, desperate for answers and the chance to reconnect with the only person who really knew her true self. Yet as the hunt becomes treacherous, and pulls the two women to the earth’s distant corners, they find themselves up against their mother’s subterfuge and the darkness that always stalked their family. Now Jane stands to lose the life she’s made for the one that has been impossible to escape.

Set in both the Pool family’s past and their present, and melding elements of a chase novel, an espionage thriller, and domestic suspense, Hard Girls is an utterly distinctive pastiche—propulsive, mysterious, cracked, intelligent, and unexpected at every turn.

Weekly Goals 26-1-26

 I had both a productive and restful weekend this weekend, so that's good.  Feeling at least somewhat ready to face work this morning.  It's not going to be a fun week, I suspect, with all the "change proposal" meetings happening and people feeling uncertain about their jobs. I'll just keep my head down, and get on with my own work and try to be supportive if people need someone to talk to.

The weather is looking iffy again for some of the week, but I'm hoping to ride to work most days.  It will be a miracle if I actually get to do it five days out of five.

I've started clearing out my WDC portfolio and have a little more space.  I want to continue with this project, especially if I settle on an idea for a new book to work on.  Or even if I just keep writing flash fiction for a few more weeks while that novel idea germinates.  It's still pretty vague, but I'm thinking it will be set over one 24-hour period and it's a romance.  Think, Before Sunrise, but set behind the scenes at a low-rent kind of music festival or county fair.  I know who the girl is, but the boy's still a little out of focus. But I know that if I wait, he'll tell me who he is.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 24-1-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

And yes, I know it was a short week with a holiday on Monday, but it's been super busy and I need a break.  I have quite a nice quiet weekend planned this week, so I'm looking forward to that.  Lots of writing stuff and maybe a movie.  The weather is pretty dreadful, so even though the garden needs some attention, it's going to have to wait.

After the flurry of rejections I received early in the week, there have been no more, which is good.  No more requests, either, which is less good, but I'll take whatever wins I can get.

The new book is continuing to get good feedback from my critique group.  It doesn't follow any of the rules of storytelling and novel structure, but somehow the characters are compelling enough to keep people reading despite the lack of an inciting incident in the right place and no real antagonist.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Day

This was another of the books I really enjoyed while I was on vacation.  I picked it up because I enjoyed The Hours which is by the same author and was interested to read something else by the same person.  I was also curious if the author might be interested in time as concept, considering the titles of both books...

And Day is about time, sort of, but mainly about family.  It's set across a day with sections called Morning, Afternoon and Evening.  The wrinkle?  The morning, afternoon and evening are in different years, so the book actually spans 2019, 2020 and 2021, following the same family.

In the morning of 2019, Isabel and her husband Dan are struggling with the fact they need to kick Isabel's younger brother out of their loft where he's been living while recovering from his most recent break-up.  Amid the morning chaos of getting kids off to school, we see the strain their marriage is under and the deep affection both of them have for Robbie which is making it harder to ask him to move even though they know their ten-year-old son needs the space to begin asserting his independence.  Robbie, who is unsatisfied with his life, has created an online persona much more adventurous and glamorous than himself and revels in posting and watching followers eat it up.

In the afternoon of 2020, the world is locked down and the family is stuck in the apartment.  Violet, the youngest child is terrified of the virus and berates anyone who leaves a window open, certain that's the way the virus will get in.  Nathan, the older son has now moved into Robbie's attic and uses his newfound privacy y to break the rules while distracted, his parents suffer through their fracturing marriage without really speaking to one another.  Robbie, who left the country just prior to the COVID outbreak, is trapped in a cabin in Iceland, still posting from the perspective of his glamorous alter-ego.

I won't go into detail of what happens in the evening of 2021, but it beautifully wraps up this family's story and shows how they've made it through this time of crisis and through an the other side.  There are glimmers of hope for their futures and a certainty that their resilience will allow them to move past this.

I really enjoyed this book.  I thought it might be fragmentary and frustrating in that it's episodic, but the three sections ft together so beautifully, following characters you can't help but feel affection for, even while you're frustrated by some of their actions.  The decisions made in one section echo through the next, showing us how things we do can ripple through our lives, across years and affect everything.

So, I'd recommend this one.  It's literary, but not a challenging read.  The characters are very real and flawed, frustrating you at every turn with their choices or inertia in making choices.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

As the world changes around them, a family weathers the storms of growing up, growing older, falling in and out of love, losing the things that are most precious—and learning to go on—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours

April 5, 2019 : In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, troubled husband and wife, are both a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, has created a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart. Meanwhile Nathan, age ten, is taking his first uncertain steps toward independence, while Violet, five, does her best not to notice the growing rift between her parents.

April 5, 2020: As the world goes into lockdown, the brownstone is feeling more like a prison. Violet is terrified of leaving the windows open, obsessed with keeping her family safe, while Nathan attempts to skirt her rules. Isabel and Dan communicate mostly in veiled jabs and frustrated sighs. And beloved Robbie is stranded in Iceland, alone in a mountain cabin with nothing but his thoughts—and his secret Instagram life—for company.

April 5, 2021: Emerging from the worst of the crisis, the family reckons with a new, very different reality—with what they’ve learned, what they’ve lost, and how they might go on.

From the brilliant mind of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham, Day is a searing, exquisitely crafted meditation on love and loss and the struggles and limitations of family life—how to live together and apart.